Just Keep Learning

Be the CEO of You By Building Your Curiosity Empire

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Ross Simmonds, Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Mon, 5 Jan 2026 21:04:39 +0000

Write. Tinker. Win.

From Hip Hop to Entrepreneurship

Ross Simmonds grew up learning lessons from hip hop that would later shape his entire career. From Jay-Z and Lupe Fiasco to Kendrick Lamar, the messages of hunger, excellence, and humility built the foundation for how he approaches business. In this episode of Just Keep Learning, Ross explains how those same principles helped him turn curiosity and writing into a multi-business empire.

Building Businesses From Curiosity

Ross didn’t start with a blueprint,he started with experiments. From selling jerseys and durags out of his locker to creating blogs and digital guides, he learned that curiosity compounds into skills. Each project taught him something new about sales, storytelling, and community,skills he now uses to run his B2B marketing agency and e-commerce brand.

Personal Branding and the “CEO of You”

Ross breaks down his framework for personal branding: think of yourself as a company. Be your own CEO, marketing director, finance officer, and HR department. Decide what you want to be known for, and act accordingly. A personal brand isn’t about pretending; it’s about doing real things, then sharing them.

Hip Hop, Hustle, and Staying Humble

Hip hop taught Ross that ambition and gratitude can coexist. At his agency, Foundation, the mantra “Stand up. Be humble.” serves as a daily reminder to celebrate wins without getting complacent. Like a great verse, every project deserves your best performance,treat your first like your last and your last like your first.

B2B vs. B2C and Making Money Online

Ross demystifies the world of business models. Whether it’s selling to consumers or companies, he says the key is finding what excites you. For some, that’s making merch or art; for others, it’s helping organizations grow. Both can work if you stay focused and learn to sell. He explains how digital skills,writing, design, communication,can turn into income fast through freelancing, affiliate marketing, or online products.

Lessons For Aspiring Creators

Treat every project like your first
Learn from hip hop: stay hungry, stay humble
Think like a CEO,build your personal brand with intention
Use the internet as your equalizer; the opportunities are endless
Build skills before income; curiosity compounds into cash flow
Experiment. Tinker. Keep learning.

Memorable Quotes

“Treat your first like your last, and your last like your first.”
“The internet is the greatest equalizer.”
“Be the CEO of you.”
“There’s no one too unskilled to make money online.”
“Find joy in tinkering,the play is the path.”

Final Advice For Creators

Be willing to experiment. Don’t chase perfection,chase curiosity. Build something, learn from it, and keep evolving. That’s how you win in business and in life.

Guest Bio

Ross Simmonds is an entrepreneur, speaker, and the founder of Foundation, a B2B content marketing agency helping global brands scale through strategy and storytelling. He’s also behind Hustle & Grind, a lifestyle brand for creators. Known for blending hip hop culture with business insight, Ross teaches creators and marketers how to turn ideas into impact.

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I'm so happy you found this podcast. I am here to serve you, the creative solopreneur & aspiring content creator to get clarity on building your publishing business. Write a book, create a podcast, share content, and build a business, design the life of your dreams.

Let's make it happen. You got this!

See how we can work together. https://stan.store/justkeeplearning

You Don’t Need Followers, You Need Leverage

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:31:12 +0000

Leverage = Online Success

Building Businesses With Words

Tim Stoddart didn’t grow up dreaming about entrepreneurship. He didn’t have a flashy origin story. But over the years, he’s quietly built a portfolio of successful online businesses with writing and SEO at the core of it all. In this episode of Just Keep Learning, we dig into how Tim went from addiction recovery to leading companies like Copyblogger, and why being boring might just be your secret weapon.

We talk about how the creator economy often sells hype over substance, and why slow, consistent action beats viral growth every time.

From Recovery To Resilience

Tim’s path started in a rehab facility. But it wasn’t just sobriety he was after. It was purpose. He began writing online, sharing his thoughts and lessons. That simple act of self-expression turned into a habit, then a skill, then a career.

By focusing on value and mastering search, Tim grew a loyal audience and turned his writing into multiple income streams, including SaaS, courses, and content businesses.

Copyblogger, SEO, and Sustainable Growth

Tim now runs Copyblogger, one of the most iconic platforms in content marketing. But his approach isn’t built on trends or shortcuts. It’s about timeless principles: show up, write well, and optimize for discovery.

He shares the real difference between content creators and business owners, and why you need to understand distribution, especially SEO, if you want to build long-term leverage.

Punching Through The Noise

Tim doesn’t buy into the shiny tactics of the influencer world. He believes in staying focused, practicing jiu-jitsu (literally and metaphorically), and building systems that work even when you’re not “on.”

He also shares insights on managing energy (not just time) and why discipline is a more reliable path than motivation.

Lessons For Aspiring Creators

Master one platform before jumping to another
Writing is the highest-leverage skill online
Focus on service, not status
SEO isn’t dead. It’s just underutilized by creatives
Stay consistent when no one’s watching
You can’t fail if you don’t quit

Memorable Quotes

“Be willing to be boring. That’s where the growth happens.”

“People chase followers, but I chase freedom.”

“Writing is thinking. And thinking clearly is a competitive advantage.”

“Being in the top 1% is easy, most people quit way too early.”

Final Advice For Creators

Forget going viral. Build value. Learn SEO. Own your platform. And above all, just keep showing up. The only way to lose is to stop.

Connect With Tim Stoddart

Website: timstodz.com
Copyblogger: copyblogger.com

Guest Bio

Tim Stoddart is a writer, entrepreneur, and digital strategist who helps people grow their audience and income through content. He’s the CEO of Copyblogger and founder of multiple online businesses, including SEO companies, SaaS tools, and media platforms. With a background in recovery and self-discipline, Tim teaches a practical, sustainable path to success, one built on writing, service, and consistency.

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Why You Should Start A Podcast

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Get Help With Your Personal Publishing Business, Build A Business, Podcast and/or Write A Book!

In this solo episode, I share why I believe everyone should start a podcast. Not in a one-size-fits-all way, but in a way that matches your personality, your lifestyle, and your goals. Podcasting is easier than most people think, and it opens the door to building authority, creating a content flywheel, connecting with incredible people, and sharpening your message over time. Whether you're growing a business, building a personal brand, or simply want to explore your creativity, this episode will help you take the first step.

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Turn Pain Into Profit: The Power of Storytelling In Business

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Clifton Sellers, Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 17:50:46 +0000

From Struggle To Strategy

Clifton Sellers' journey is a masterclass in resilience. From battling addiction and personal loss to building a thriving ghostwriting agency, his story is one of radical transformation. In this episode of Just Keep Learning, Clifton opens up about his darkest chapters, and how he used writing, therapy, and entrepreneurship to rewrite his life.

We explore how he went from surviving trauma to helping others share their stories, and what it truly means to move from inspiration to execution.

Writing As A Lifeline

Clifton first found healing through journaling raw, unfiltered pages that helped him make sense of the chaos. Over time, writing became more than just self-expression. It became a service. He started helping others put their stories into words, and soon realized he had a gift not just for writing, but for understanding people.

This evolved into a full-time ghostwriting business that empowers entrepreneurs to use storytelling as both strategy and therapy.

Ghostwriting, Branding, and Agency Building

Today, Clifton runs a successful ghostwriting agency, helping thought leaders turn their ideas into books, speeches, and brand-defining narratives. But it didn’t start with a polished business plan. It started with asking one question: How can I serve with what I’ve been through?

We break down how Clifton built his agency step by step, from DM outreach and landing his first clients, to scaling with systems and team building. He shares the real behind-the-scenes of what it takes to turn a personal skill into a sustainable business.

Mental Health, Masculinity, and Meaning

This episode goes far beyond content strategy. Clifton speaks candidly about addiction, grief, fatherhood, and the pressure men face to "have it all together." We discuss the importance of therapy, the healing power of honest conversations, and why vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness.

His story reminds us that the path to success isn’t linear and that our greatest pain can become our greatest platform.

Lessons For Aspiring Creators

Authenticity always beats polish
Your story matters, no matter how messy it is
Don’t wait until it’s perfect. Just start where you are
Writing is a service. Help others express what they can’t
Entrepreneurship starts with solving one real problem, for one person.
Mental health is non-negotiable. Prioritize healing as much as hustle

Memorable Quotes

“You don't have to be healed to help.”
“Writing is a mirror. The more honest you are, the more powerful it becomes.”
“I didn’t build a brand. I built a life that felt like me, and the brand followed.”
“If you show up with service first, you’ll always have a seat at the table.”

Final Advice For Creators

Turn your mess into your message. Someone out there needs to hear it. You don’t have to be an expert, you just have to be honest. And if you don’t know where to start? Write. It all starts with the pen, or pencil on the page.

Guest Bio

Clifton Sellers is a ghostwriter, storyteller, and founder of a growing agency that helps entrepreneurs turn their life experiences into powerful personal brands. After overcoming addiction, loss, and self-doubt, Clifton used writing to rebuild his life and now helps others do the same. He specializes in helping creatives and business leaders clarify their voice, craft their message, and publish work that inspires and converts.

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What If The Secret To Success Is Just Being You?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Thu, 6 Nov 2025 20:51:58 +0000

Get Help With Your Personal Publishing Business, Build A Business, Podcast and/or Write A Book!

I started this year planning to work out every day and missed the first four, but instead of spiraling, it reminded me that progress matters more than perfection. In this solo episode, I talk about setting goals in a way that actually feels good, letting go of the pressure to be perfect, and learning to trust your intuition.

I share the story of Frank, also known as Virtual Grandad, who built a massive following not by trying to go viral but by consistently sharing his music from the heart. Whether you're launching a podcast, writing a book, building a business, or simply trying to stay consistent with your habits, this episode is all about learning to create from within, go with your gut, and just keep going your way.

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Community Is The Future: How To Win Without Algorithms

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Gina Bianchini, Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 5 Nov 2025 22:01:42 +0000

Community Is The Future: How To Win Without Algorithms

Gina Bianchini believes the future belongs to people who know how to bring people together. In this episode of Just Keep Learning, we dive deep into the power of digital communities, how to build a thriving membership business, and why creators should stop chasing followers and start creating spaces for transformation.

As the founder of Mighty Networks, Gina has helped thousands of entrepreneurs—from yoga teachers to career coaches—build their own communities that are more than just audiences. She explains how anyone can turn their passion into a business by creating a community around purpose, identity, and results.

From Silicon Valley To Mighty Movements

Gina started her career in Silicon Valley during the early days of social media. But after co-founding Ning, she realized the real value wasn’t in broadcasting, it was in belonging. That led her to launch Mighty Networks, a platform focused on giving creators the tools to build high-impact, high-value communities and online courses all in one place.

We talk about her journey, the difference between superficial engagement and meaningful transformation, and why she believes the next wave of the internet is community-first, not content-first.

Monetization Through Community

So many creators are told they need to go viral, build a huge following, and then maybe—just maybe—monetize with ads or sponsors. Gina offers a better path.

She explains how to build a business that makes money by solving real problems for a specific group of people. Through memberships, courses, events, and community experiences, creators can start earning much earlier and more sustainably—without relying on algorithms or reach.

Community Design & Business Strategy

Gina introduces the three key elements of Community Design:

A clear purpose that aligns with transformation
A specific identity that members aspire to
A structured path that delivers results

She shares how to structure your community for engagement, scale your value, and guide your members through a journey that actually improves their lives.

We also touch on mindset shifts, including why creators need to think like entrepreneurs, how to manage imposter syndrome, and the importance of leading with curiosity.

Lessons For Aspiring Creators

Build for belonging, not just attention
Monetization is about results, not reach
Start small, but start with transformation
Soft skills like storytelling, facilitation, and empathy are your superpowers
The platform you use should amplify your purpose, not distract from it
Don’t be afraid to niche down, because specificity scales

Memorable Quotes

“The future belongs to people who know how to bring people together.”
“You don’t need a million followers, you need a hundred people on a mission.”
“Community is not about content. It’s about transformation.”
“Stop building funnels. Start building results.”

Final Advice For Creators

Choose your niche, find your purpose, and start building something real for real people.

Your job isn’t to entertain the algorithm—it’s to lead a transformation. When you do that, everything else—income, impact, growth—will follow.

Guest Bio

Gina Bianchini is the founder and CEO of Mighty Networks, a platform that helps creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs build digital communities, memberships, and courses. A Silicon Valley veteran and co-founder of Ning, Gina’s mission is to help people create meaningful movements online by bringing people together with purpose. She’s a leading voice in the community-building space and a champion of independent creators everywhere.

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Find Freedom By Writing Like A Human, Not A Robot

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Alin Dragu, Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:23:02 +0000

From Adversity to Optimism

Alin Dragu grew up in a chaotic household, one of seven kids in a Romanian immigrant family trying to make it in America. The odds weren’t in his favor, but instead of letting that define him, he built a life anchored in optimism, storytelling, and helping others.

In this episode of Just Keep Learning, we dive into the mindset shifts that changed Alin’s life, how he navigated difficult conversations, and why he believes daily writing is the most powerful tool for personal growth and career clarity.

Teaching Life Design Through Soft Skills

If Alin were to build a school for his younger self, the curriculum wouldn’t start with accounting or marketing. It would begin with soft skills, especially optimism.

We talk about the power of surrounding yourself with positive people, how to attract more good into your life, and why emotional resilience matters more than any hard skill. Alin shares how gratitude and optimism helped him design a life filled with purpose, creativity, and love.

The Jonah On Your Boat

One of the most memorable moments in this episode is Alin’s retelling of the Jonah story, a metaphor (and true story) he uses to explain the importance of removing negativity from your life. Whether it’s a toxic friend, a pessimistic coworker, or even your own mindset, sometimes you need to “throw Jonah off the boat” to restore peace and progress.

This story is a powerful lens for reevaluating your relationships and creating boundaries with people who drain your energy.

Building A Business Around Writing

Alin didn’t start out knowing he’d become a copywriter. He tried photography, video, logos, and websites before realizing writing was his true “unfair advantage” (the thing that felt like play but created real results.)

He now writes emails daily to his growing list, teaches others how to find their voice, and takes on client work that aligns with his values. His success came not from forcing a niche, but from following what lit him up and staying consistent.

Storytelling, Copywriting, and Content Strategy

Alin breaks down two of his favorite storytelling tricks. These approaches remove stiffness and help you write like a real human being, something Alin believes is essential whether you're writing emails, sales pages, or social posts.

The Coffee Test: How would you tell this story to a friend over coffee?
The Two-Wine Test: What would you say if you were two glasses of wine deep?

Lessons For Aspiring Creators

With all this stuff, just be more human
Find your unfair advantage (talent + joy)
You are the average of who you give your attention to
Write daily to your audience, build momentum, clarity and connection
Don’t be afraid to “throw Jonah off the boat” and curate your community
You don’t need permission to be multi-passionate, be you, but build business
Difficult conversations are hard, but they’re never as bad as you think, and they’re worth it
It doesn’t have to be perfect—just personal, helpful, and honest. That’s how you build trust. That’s how you build a life.
Stop waiting to be ready. Write the email. Tell the story. Share the thing. Every day.

Memorable Quotes

“Find the good, and the good will find you.”

“You are the captain of your boat. And some people are bringing the storm with them.”

“If you document your journey, you’ll never run out of content. And someone will always thank you for it.”

“Your unfair advantage is the thing that feels like play but works like leverage.”

Guest Bio

Alin Dragu is a copywriter (aka the “copygoat”), storyteller, and marketer who helps creators build real businesses through powerful writing. With a background in marketing and ministry, he blends personal stories with copy strategies that actually convert. He’s known for his optimistic energy, punchy storytelling, and a commitment to help people write in their truest voice, every single day.

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Your Creator Playbook: Stop Chasing Followers, Attract Buyers

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Josh Spector, Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Mon, 8 Sep 2025 12:46:21 +0000

In this episode of Just Keep Learning, Josh Spector joins Justin Nolan to talk about simplifying content creation, building an audience around your ideas, and turning your expertise into income. Whether you're just starting out or already building a creative business, Josh offers clear, practical insights that cut through the noise.

From Comedy Clubs To Content Strategy

Josh didn’t set out to become a marketing expert. He started in the world of entertainment—working in comedy clubs, managing talent, and learning how to engage audiences. That hands-on experience led him to roles in digital strategy, where he helped brands and creators grow their platforms using content and community.

Now, he runs multiple newsletters, consults creators and businesses, and continues to teach people how to grow an audience of buyers—not just followers.

Focus On The Right People

One of Josh’s core principles is this: Stop chasing everyone. Start speaking to someone.

He encourages creators to focus on their “ideal person”—a concept that goes beyond basic demographics and gets into mindset, problems, and dreams. Josh explains how this single shift can improve your writing, positioning, products, and overall business growth.

The Simplest Funnel You’ll Ever See

Josh breaks down a content strategy that works for solo creators who don’t want to spend every minute online. His system revolves around:

Attracting the right people through value-driven content

Offering simple products or services that help those people

Repeating what works while staying true to your voice

Forget fancy funnels and endless ads. Josh proves that consistency, clarity, and simplicity still work.

Lessons For Aspiring Creators

Write for one person. Always.

Your content should be useful, entertaining, or both.

Don’t overcomplicate your offers. Make them easy to say yes to.

Focus on transformation: What change are you helping people make?

You don’t need a huge audience. You need the right audience.

Memorable Quotes

“Your goal isn’t to go viral. Your goal is to become valuable.”

“The people who pay attention are telling you what they want—if you’re listening.”

“You can’t scale chaos. So get clear, get simple, and then grow.”

Final Advice For Creators

Don’t try to be everywhere. Don’t try to do everything. Find the overlap between what you’re great at, what your audience needs, and what you enjoy—and build from there.

Connect With Josh Spector

joshspector.com
For The Interested newsletter
Podcast: I Want To Know
Twitter/X: @jspector

Guest Bio

Josh Spector is a content strategist, writer, and consultant who helps creative entrepreneurs grow their audience and income. He’s the creator of the long-running newsletter For The Interested, host of the I Want To Know podcast, and a trusted advisor for creators and businesses who want to turn ideas into impact. With a background in entertainment and digital media, Josh brings practical, no-BS advice to the world of audience building.

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8 Ways To Find Your Perfect Business Idea

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Tue, 2 Sep 2025 16:55:39 +0000

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In this episode of Just Keep Learning, we dive into one of the biggest challenges new creators and entrepreneurs face—figuring out what business to start. Justin shares his personal journey of moving from idea overwhelm to clarity and introduces two powerful frameworks:

The Ikigai method and his original 8 Ps of idea generation (Practice, People, Pondering, Passion, Problems, Products, Pains, Payment).

Whether you’re a multipassionate creator or starting from scratch, this episode will help you generate 4–5 solid business ideas and build momentum without overthinking.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:

The #1 question to unlock your business niche

How to use Ikigai and the 3 big markets (health, wealth, relationships)

The 8 Ps framework for brainstorming profitable ideas

How to simplify and validate your idea before building

Why momentum beats perfection every time

🎧 Listen now and share what idea you’re most excited to build!

From Pro BMX to Disney Editor to Creative Agency Founder

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (George Boyd, Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Wed, 6 Aug 2025 13:27:30 +0000

In this episode, Justin sits down with George Boyd—former pro BMX rider turned video editor and founder of the podcast production agency, Cut The Pod. George shares his journey from filming tricks with friends to editing for Disney and building a lean, values-driven agency. He opens up about mentorship, learning from mistakes, freelancing, and what it really takes to grow a sustainable creative business in today’s media landscape.

Whether you’re a filmmaker, content creator, or someone considering building an agency of your own—this episode is full of actionable insights and inspiration.

Key Topics

The power of storytelling, from BMX edits to million-dollar brands

Why most people overthink their tools—and what really matters in content creation

George’s non-linear path to building a high-end creative agency

Learning from failure and recovering from ghosted client projects

Why great mentorship is everything (and how to be your own coach)

Finding the middle ground between hustle and peace

What makes a video podcast actually worth watching

How to get started as a freelancer with nothing but a phone and Wi-Fi

The real way to build a long-term, referral-driven creative business

Why “agency” is a buzzword—and how to build one that doesn’t burn you out

From BMX to Disney: George's Early Career

George’s creative journey began with BMX—filming with friends, editing DVDs, and accidentally becoming one of the first people to post BMX web videos online. Through this passion, he developed a love for storytelling and video editing. A Craigslist ad during a trip to LA eventually landed him a gig editing Disney Parks content from a guest bedroom. That snowballed into working inside Disney HQ, then growing a boutique agency with his mentor—before eventually striking out on his own.

🎬 The Power of Story (And Why You Should Start With What You Have)

George emphasizes that there’s no wrong way to tell a story. Whether it's a gritty TikTok clip or a million-dollar Nike ad, what matters is the feeling you give the viewer. He advises aspiring creators not to obsess over gear or tools: “Use what you’ve got. Make stuff. Get better.” He also shares lessons from his late brother’s storytelling ambitions—reminding us all that we don’t need permission to create.

🛠 From Freelancer to Founder

The transition from solo freelancer to agency owner wasn’t overnight. George built his brand one job at a time—stacking referrals, working odd hours, and learning through hard-earned mistakes. He shares horror stories like hiring the wrong contractor and how they pulled off a 32-hour marathon edit to save a project. Through it all, the mission remained the same: do great work and be kind to people.

“You never know who you’re working with today that will change your future.”

📦 Building ‘Cut The Pod’

Today, George runs Cut The Pod, a high-end post-production agency for video podcasts. He works with editors from across the globe and prioritizes quality, communication, and clarity. He’s focused on helping brands use podcasts strategically, not just aesthetically, and he’s passionate about creating systems that make the creative process sustainable for everyone involved.

🧠 George’s 3 Tips For New Creators

Use the tools you have — A $30 mic and a phone can go a long way.

Find flow, not perfection — Be like water, adapt and keep moving forward.

Just be nice — Seriously. Kindness opens doors.

💬 Memorable Quotes

“There’s no wrong way to tell a story.”
“Just because something looks good doesn’t mean it is good.”
“You don't need more gear, you need more clay.”
“Be nice. That’ll get you further than you think.”

✍️ Advice For Aspiring Creators

George encourages aspiring editors, freelancers, and storytellers to start where they are. He recommends platforms like Upwork and Fiverr as entry points—but warns they come with tough early lessons. His biggest tip? Don’t overestimate your skill or underestimate your ability to figure things out.

💥 Final Takeaway

George’s story reminds us that great careers are often built in messy, winding ways. You don’t need to have it all figured out. Just keep showing up, tell stories that matter, and build something worth being proud of.

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Before You Build A Business Fix These 7 Mindset Mistakes

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Sat, 2 Aug 2025 17:28:24 +0000

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Struggling to build your business? It might not be your strategy. It’s your mindset. In this video, I break down the 7 mental traps that secretly sabotage entrepreneurs before they ever see success.

These mistakes held me back for years. If you're serious about building a business that gives you freedom, watch this first.

✅ Learn the mindset shifts every entrepreneur needs
✅ Avoid the traps that keep most people stuck
✅ Get real, honest advice from someone building in public

👉 Drop a comment: What are YOU building? Let’s grow together.

Stop Punishing Your Kids

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Luke Adsit, Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 14:43:12 +0000

Luke shares practical strategies for peaceful parenting, a method built on respect, collaboration, and understanding. Whether you're a new parent or looking to improve your relationship with your child, Luke provides actionable tips to foster healthy communication and emotional growth in your family.

He discusses why traditional punishment methods often backfire, how to manage your own emotions as a parent, and practical steps to resolve conflicts through collaborative problem-solving.

You'll learn:

How to shift from punitive methods to peaceful approaches

Techniques to manage your emotions and avoid raising your voice

The powerful impact of empathy and listening in parenting

Steps to collaboratively solve problems with your children

How peaceful parenting positively shapes your child's development

Memorable Quotes from Luke:

"Ask yourself, 'Is this decision best for shaping my children into the kind of people I want them to be?'"

"Lessons for kids are much better caught than they are taught."

"Connection over correction. It’s not primarily about punishing badness; it's about connecting and understanding."

"Kids aren't giving you a hard time—they're having a hard time."

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What I’d Tell Every Senior Before Graduation

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Robin Waite, Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 17:53:09 +0000

In this powerful episode of Just Keep Learning, we sit down with bestselling author, fearless business coach, and keynote speaker Robin Waite. We dive deep into the real pillars of success: productivity, purpose, wealth, and well-being.

Robin shares stories about redefining balance, coaching breakthroughs, family struggles, and how to escape the “zombie life” of misaligned goals.

Whether you’re feeling stuck in your career or ready to build a brand that truly reflects your values, this conversation is packed with mindset shifts and practical wisdom to help you find clarity and take your shot.

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How I Messed Up My Business And What You Can Learn!

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 21:23:30 +0000

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You own a business. Or at least you should. (If you want to be a successful creator and truly help others) You can do a lot of god in the world. Your content can change lives. It can change the world.

IF you understand how to build in a sustainable way. If you don't, you'll burnout, FAST! And you can't reinvest in growing your impact until you make money. The cool thing is, the WAY TO GET THERE IS THE SAME (every successful creator I studied uses a very similar game plan)

Now you can follow it too! Especially if you care a lot.

In this solo episode, Justin shares one of his most valuable (and vulnerable) lessons as a creator: he built his business the wrong way.

From memberships with no real offer to lead magnets that had nowhere to lead, he opens up about what didn’t work — and what finally clicked after studying how top creators structure their businesses.

You’ll learn the seven essential levels of a sustainable creator business, how to stop guessing and start monetizing with intention, and why teaching is the secret to long-term income and impact.

If you’re trying to build a personal brand, make money as a creator, or simply get your business unstuck — this episode is a roadmap you can follow (and adapt) starting today.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why most creator businesses fail to scale

The exact 7 levels of a successful offer stack

What every top creator (Brendan Burchard, Myron Golden, Alex Hormozi, etc.) does similarly

How to monetize your passion through teaching

What to create first — and what to stop creating now

🛠️ Resources Mentioned:

Daniel Priestley’s Ascending Transaction Model

Brendan Burchard’s Value Ladder

Myron Golden’s Offer Stack

Alex Hormozi’s Wedding Cake Model

Brand Builders Group Profit Maximizer

📌 Homework:
What’s one thing you could teach?
Now ask yourself: what would that look like as a free offer? A $10 product? A $1,000 coaching experience?

Stack those ideas, and start building your product ecosystem today.

FOLLOW Justin
Instagram – @JustKeepLearning.Ca
YouTube –@justkeeplearningpodcast
Twitter – @JustinNolan_JKL
Tiktok – @justkeeplearning.ca
Pinterest – JustKeepLearningca
Facebook – JustKeepLearning
LinkedIn – Ju stin

Build a Business That Doesn't Burn You Out

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 16:55:17 +0000

In this episode of the Just Keep Learning Podcast, host Justin Nolan sits down with Michelle Ward, founder of Oh Hello Business, to talk about how to build a brave, boundaried, and burnout-free business. Michelle shares how to build a brave, boundaried business that aligns with who you are, no burnout, no bullsh*t.

Michelle shares her story of going from Broadway performer to creative business coach — and how she now helps entrepreneurs build purpose-driven businesses without sacrificing their sanity. If you’re tired of hustle culture and ready to create a business that aligns with your real life, this episode is for you.

🔑 In This Episode with Michelle Ward:

How to make bold career pivots with confidence

Setting boundaries that protect your energy

Ditching hustle culture for sustainable success

Creating offers that reflect your values

The truth about personal branding and being “your full self”

What it really means to build a business as a grown-ass adult

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4 Rules Every Creator Must Follow (Before Burnout Wins)

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 13:46:18 +0000

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This episode is raw, reflective, and straight from a post-run mindset. I talk about the connection between grief, creativity, momentum, and how 20,000 podcast listens and 20,000 video views barely scratch the surface of what it means to build a sustainable creator business.

Whether you're just starting out or trying to push through burnout, here are 4 powerful reminders for any creator: 4 Things To Remember About Being a Creator:

Document, Don’t Create Don’t overthink content. Share what you’re already doing. Let it be imperfect and real.

Do It For The Data Approach your creative work like an experiment. Create. Observe. Adjust. Improve.

Decisions ≠ Outcomes Great decisions don’t guarantee great results—but they’re still worth making. Focus on the process, not just the result.

Find Your Optimal Stress Zone Too much stress = burnout. Too little = stagnation. Momentum lives in the middle.

Your $0 to $1 Million Business Journey Starts HERE

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 8 Jul 2025 19:46:15 +0000

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Welcome to Episode 1 of the Build In Public Challenge! I'm starting from scratch and documenting every step as I build a million-dollar creator business — in real time.

You should start a business. Ownership leads to leverage and leverage is key to your long term goals.

This series is for creators who want to start or grow a business but feel overwhelmed by where to begin.

In this episode, we talk about:
✅ Why you must own something
✅ The truth about building in public (without burning out)
✅ How to think like a teacher (and why it matters for your brand)
✅ The biggest mindset shifts that helped me move from stuck to starting
✅ Your first homework: Use Ikigai to brainstorm your first offer

Whether you’re launching a podcast, writing a book, selling a service, or exploring multiple passions — this journey is for you.

📌 Subscribe and follow along.
📤 Share this playlist with a friend who’s building too.
💬 Comment below: What’s your first product, service, or idea?

Let’s build.
— Justin

Why You Should Own Something, Anything

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Fri, 4 Jul 2025 16:30:40 +0000

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This video highlights the importance of ownership. Why you need to start a business. Ownership leads to leverage and leverage is key to your long term goals. Justin Nolan talks about self directed learning and the need for education reform that is in line with entrepreneurship.

The ideas of Sir Ken Robinson, John Taylor Gatto and John Dewey are featured, emphasizing how genius is common and often suppressed, suggesting that managing oneself and real-world learning could unlock a student's true potential.

So, start a business. Own something. The rich get richer because of leverage and ownership. We don't learn a lot about this in school. Go build!

Build A Million Dollar Brand With No Social Media, Serve Don't Sell

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, John Meese) — Wed, 2 Jul 2025 03:07:52 +0000

This JKL John Meese podcast episode is one of the best so far. So much value to go from struggling as a creator, coach, or consultant to absolutely crushing it (without using social media if you’d like)

Justin sits down with John Meese, entrepreneur, author, and creator teacher, to unpack the real skills behind sustainable success. From building businesses rooted in empathy to ditching social media and still thriving as an author, John brings a powerful reminder that the human connection is the real superpower. The overall point is serve, don’t sell, and you’ll make millions!

Whether you’re a multipassionate creator, aspiring entrepreneur, or someone simply trying to write and make an impact, this conversation is full of gold.

Key Topics We Covered

🎯 Why empathy—not algorithms—is your entrepreneurial superpower
🧠 The danger of serving avatars instead of real people
🧃 What a $600 juicer can teach us about solving problems that don’t exist
🛠️ How John failed (and learned) from launching a course during his dad’s cancer diagnosis
📚 The mistakes (and wins) behind publishing three books
🧘‍♂️ Why John left social media and became a better writer because of it
🏡 How he right-sized his business to match his family life
✍️ John's “do less, better” writing workflow
🎤 Behind the scenes of his keynote at ConvertKit’s Craft + Commerce
👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Why being present for your kids is the ultimate ROI

Advice For Aspiring Creators

Don’t skip the human part. Talk to real people. Know their problems. Serve them.
Start small and specific. John’s first course served only 3,000 possible customers—and made $10,000 in 10 days.
Publish your Primus Opus. Stop waiting to be a genius. Publish now and improve later.
Be a tub thumper. As in the song: "I get knocked down, but I get up again.” That’s entrepreneurship.
Do less, better. Pick your medium, master it, and ignore the rest.

Memorable Quotes

“When people lose that ability to connect to the real person they’re trying to serve, they lose their superpower as an entrepreneur, which is empathy.”
“I kept looking to them for validation every time I had an idea for my book... and that probably should have been my red flag to be like, "I'm out.”
“Focus on relationships before results. What happens is when you focus on relationships before results, surprisingly, results come after.”
“I just need to generate enough revenue to fund my lifestyle and then spend the rest of my time with my kids.”

Who Is John Meese?

John Meese is a best-selling author, founder of the “Serve to Sell” framework, and one of the clearest voices in the world of creator entrepreneurship. A former academic turned business strategist, John teaches digital entrepreneurs how to clarify their audience, solve real problems, and build profitable personal brands, all without relying on social media.

He’s got a few business ventures, but his current focus is “Sold Out Coach Club” a coaching program and membership teaching people how to be oversubscribed and sold out.

He’s also a great family man, former economics researcher, and someone who knows firsthand how to rise after failure.

John Meese is the author of Serve to Sell and Survive and Thrive, a keynote speaker, and one of the leading voices in sustainable creator business strategy. He believes in a business model that respects your lifestyle, not one that burns you out.

He’s also the rare creator who thrives without social media, instead building his business through powerful email storytelling, podcast guesting, and strong product ecosystems.

Follow John

https://www.sellyoursmarts.co/

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Why New Year's Resolutions Fail (And How to Actually Crush Your Goals)

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:00:51 +0000

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Let Go of Perfection

New Year's resolutions often set us up for failure. Why? Because we aim for perfection. Miss a day, and it feels like we've failed entirely. But here's the truth: perfection is the enemy of progress. Success is about momentum, not flawless execution. Miss a workout or two? So what. Keep moving forward. The goal is to feel good during the process, not just at the finish line.

Focus on Feeling Good Through the Process

Delaying gratification used to feel like the ultimate discipline. But the real win is finding joy while working toward your goals. Yes, hard work is uncomfortable, but if you're constantly miserable, what's the point? Build a system that lets you grow and enjoy the journey simultaneously.

The Pyramid of Priorities: A Framework for Success

Picture your goals as a pyramid:

Base Layer: Daily habits (nutrition, fitness, relationships, meditation, creativity). These are your non-negotiables, like brushing your teeth.
Middle Layer: Big dreams (writing a book, launching a podcast, building a business). This is where your focus goes.
Top Layer: Hobbies and jobs. These can change over time and don't need results. They're for pure joy.

This structure keeps you grounded while allowing space to dream big.

The Waterfall Action Board: Turning Big Dreams Into Daily Action

Got a big goal? Break it down. Use a "Waterfall Action Board" to simplify your journey:

Identify the Big Goal: (e.g., Write a book)
Break It Down: Outline chapters, research, drafts, editing.
Decide What to Outsource: Cover design, marketing, editing.
Prioritize Daily Action: What's the next step YOU must do? Build a habit around it.

For me, it's writing 1,000 words daily and sharing drafts with beta readers. Simple, clear, and actionable.

Maintain Your Baseline Habits

While chasing big dreams, your daily baseline keeps you balanced. For me, that means:

30 minutes of exercise
Eating 80% whole foods
10-20 minutes of meditation
Creating content for 30 minutes
Quality time with family

These habits are the foundation that supports everything else. Missing a day isn't failure—it's part of the process. Just get back to it.

Make Space for Hobbies Without Pressure

Not everything needs to be a goal. Hobbies are for fun, not productivity. Whether it's singing, painting, woodworking, or running, these interests bring vitality to life. They don't need to be monetized or mastered—they just need to be enjoyed.

Progress Over Perfection

In the end, it's all about progress. Forget perfect streaks. Build momentum. Keep moving forward. Whether it's January or July, your goals are always worth pursuing.

So, what's your big dream? Let me know—I'd love to support you.

And until next time, just keep learning.

Unlock Your True Potential: Shift Your Beliefs And Transform Your Life with Cliff Ravenscraft

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Cliff Ravenscraft) — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 04:04:58 +0000

In this first Cliff Ravensraft podcast episode on Just Keep Learning, Justin sits down with Cliff, a podcasting pioneer, business mentor, and mindset coach.

He shares his transformative journey from working in a family-owned insurance business to becoming a full-time content creator and mentor. They dive deep into the power of beliefs, overcoming limiting mindsets, and the practical steps needed to build a fulfilling and successful life aligned with personal values.

Whether you're just starting your creative journey or looking to break through mental blocks, this episode offers actionable insights to help you transform your mindset and achieve your goals.

A Universal Lesson: All Beliefs Have Consequences

When asked what lesson he would teach youth today, Cliff emphasized: All beliefs have consequences.

Beliefs Shape Reality: Cliff explains how beliefs are thoughts we feel certain about, not necessarily facts. These beliefs directly influence our actions and results in life.
Question Everything: He encourages listeners to question their beliefs and assess whether they support or hinder their desired life.
Empowerment through Change: Cliff shares how shifting limiting beliefs can unlock new opportunities and empower people to live authentically.

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs: Cliff's Personal Story

Cliff candidly shares how his early beliefs about work and money led to burnout and financial struggles during his first year as a full-time entrepreneur:

Hard Work Equals Worth: Cliff believed that the harder and more unpleasant a task was, the more money it should earn. This belief made him undervalue his work.
Time Equals Money: He thought clients paid for his time, not the value of his solutions, leading him to undercharge and overwork.
The Shift: Cliff reframed his beliefs, recognizing that value isn't tied to effort but to impact. This shift allowed him to work smarter, charge fairly, and prioritize his well-being.

Lessons from Entrepreneurship

Cliff offers valuable insights for aspiring creators and entrepreneurs:

Align Work with Passion: Choose work you love—something you'd talk about for free—and build a business around it.
Value Your Expertise: Understand that people pay for the value you provide, not just the time you spend.
Start Small, Think Long-Term: Begin with manageable projects and focus on consistent, meaningful growth.
Know Your Audience: Build personal connections with listeners and clients to create a strong, engaged community.

Insights from The Four Agreements

Cliff discusses the impact of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and how its principles transformed his mindset:

Be Impeccable with Your Word: Use words consciously to uplift yourself and others.
Don’t Take Anything Personally: Recognize that others' actions reflect their own beliefs, not yours.
Don’t Make Assumptions: Seek clarity instead of making assumptions to avoid misunderstandings.
Always Do Your Best: Commit to your best effort, recognizing it will vary day to day.

Podcasting Insights: Tips for New Creators

With nearly 4,800 episodes across 55 shows, Cliff shares valuable podcasting advice:

Start with Passion: Choose a topic you love enough to discuss even if no one listens.
Focus on Impact, Not Numbers: Prioritize meaningful connections over download statistics.
Know Your Audience: Personally engage with your first listeners to build a loyal community.
Audio vs. Video: Cliff prefers audio for its authenticity but acknowledges that video can expand reach when used strategically.

Memorable Quotes

“All beliefs have consequences.”

“People pay for the value you provide, not the time you spend.”

“There is a void in the world without your voice.”

“Your results in life are driven by your actions, which are driven by your beliefs.”

Advice for Aspiring Creators

Challenge Your Beliefs: Identify and replace limiting beliefs that hold you back.
Start Creating Now: Don't wait for perfection—launch your first version and improve over time.
Engage Your Community: Personally connect with your audience to build trust and loyalty.
Define Success for Yourself: Focus on impact and fulfillment rather than external metrics.

Guest Bio

Cliff Ravenscraft is a podcasting pioneer, business mentor, and mindset coach known as the "Mindset Answer Man."

With over 4,800 podcast episodes across 55 shows, Cliff has helped countless creators and entrepreneurs launch successful businesses by transforming their mindsets and aligning their work with their passions. His coaching focuses on breaking limiting beliefs and building a life of purpose, impact, and abundance.

Follow Cliff:

X: @CliffEOTC
Instagram: @cliffeotc
LinkedIn: @cliffravenscraft
Website: Cliffravenscraft.Com

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN
Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
X @JustinNolan_JKL
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LinkedIn – @justinnolan

Unlock Your Creative Potential And Build in Public With Kelly Wilde Miller

Wed, 8 Jan 2025 21:36:47 +0000

In this enlightening Kelly Wilde Miller podcast on Just Keep Learning, Justin connects with a multifaceted creator, entrepreneur, and coach. Kelly specializes in creativity and personal transformation.

She shares her journey from traditional work to embracing the creative, unconventional path that allows her to live authentically. Through actionable insights and deeply personal stories, Kelly opens up about the challenges and triumphs of pursuing a creative life while staying true to oneself.

Whether you’re a seasoned creator or someone exploring the first steps of your creative journey, this episode offers invaluable lessons on overcoming blocks, building sustainable projects, and staying aligned with your core values.

A Universal Course: Embodied Creativity

When asked what she would teach if every young person in the world could take one course, Kelly’s answer was clear: Embodied Creativity. She describes this as learning to channel creativity through a mind-body-spirit connection, allowing students to experience the full process of bringing ideas into tangible form.

Project-Based Learning: The course would guide students through developing a creative project from idea to completion, culminating in a showcase where they present their work.
Creative Cycles: Kelly envisions structuring the course around the four seasons, teaching students to embrace phases of experimentation, execution, refinement, and reflection.
Empowerment: By experiencing the process of creation, students build confidence, self-belief, and a lifelong understanding of their creative potential.

Overcoming Blocks: Manifestation and Action

Kelly redefines “manifestation” in practical terms—as the act of bringing ideas into form. She emphasizes breaking creative projects into manageable steps to avoid overwhelm and build momentum.

Start Small: Avoid the trap of trying to create perfection from the outset.
Iterate: Embrace the concept of version one (V1) as a starting point, refining and improving as you go.
Crowdsource Support: Kelly shares how she used feedback from her audience to design the cover of her first book, highlighting the power of community in the creative process.

Lessons from Entrepreneurship

Kelly’s entrepreneurial journey is filled with valuable takeaways for aspiring creators:

Nurture Safety: Ensure your basic needs are met before taking big risks. Kelly learned this the hard way during her first entrepreneurial venture, which led to financial strain and burnout.
Seek Mentorship: Having guidance and support can help you navigate challenges and accelerate your growth.
Align with Values: Whether in traditional employment or as an entrepreneur, aligning work with your values ensures fulfillment and sustainability.
Experiment Freely: Embrace the mindset of learning through doing, even if it means failing along the way.

Creative Dysregulation: Understanding and Overcoming It

Kelly introduces the concept of creative dysregulation, a state where resistance, fear, or overwhelm blocks progress. She shares strategies to overcome these blocks:

Find Safety: Reconnect with your body and calm your nervous system.
Reframe the Project: Break tasks into smaller, achievable steps.
Balance Skills and Growth: Aim for an 80/20 ratio of tasks that you’re skilled at versus new challenges.
Celebrate Progress: Each step forward is a victory worth acknowledging.

Insights on Building in Public

Kelly advocates for the "build in public" approach to creating, which fosters accountability, community support, and iterative progress. Sharing your process openly not only helps you improve but also invites others to celebrate and support your journey.

Memorable Quotes

“It’s safe to be myself out in the world.”
“We manifest every day, whether it’s finishing an assignment, making a meal, or creating a project.”
“Something that’s averagely good can still help people. You don’t need to wait for perfection.”
“The only person who can give you permission to pursue your dreams is you.”

Advice for Aspiring Creators

Start Small and Build Momentum: Launch a mini version of your project to gain clarity and confidence.
Find Your Through Line: Identify the common themes that connect your passions and projects.
Experiment with Creative Containers: Whether it’s a book, podcast, or newsletter, start with a clear goal and timeline to test the waters.
Focus on Connection: Creativity is as much about human connection as it is about individual expression.

Guest Bio

Kelly Wilde Miller is a creative embodiment coach helping people bring their visions to life with inspired sustainability.

She works with creators, entrepreneurs, and founders to help them align their vision with their inner wisdom and natural rhythms, so they can create with purpose, power, and precision

As a creativity coach, entrepreneur, and writer she is dedicated to helping others unlock their creative potential. She is passionate about empowering people to overcome their blocks, manifest their ideas, and live authentically. Kelly’s workshops, coaching, and challenges inspire creators to take action and build a life aligned with their values and dreams. She does this with a focus on three main things.

The Project as the Container: Your project becomes the space where we focus your energy, creativity, and intention. It’s a living expression of your vision and purpose, giving us something concrete to shape together and learn through.

Embodied Creativity: Alongside strategy and planning, we incorporate embodiment practices to keep you grounded, regulated and connected. This ensures you’re not just making progress but doing it in a way that feels aligned with your body’s wisdom and your values; replacing fear-based or stress-based action with inspired enthusiasm.

Transformation Through Action: As you move through the process of creation, you’ll face challenges, breakthroughs, and moments of doubt. These are all opportunities for inner transformation. By engaging with the project, you’ll grow personally and creatively — with the project itself as proof of your evolution.

Follow Kelly

X: @kellycwilde
LinkedIn: @kellywildemiller
Website: https://kellywildemiller.com/

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Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
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Ex Teacher Builds A Life of Leverage Through Writing, Creativity and Entrepreneurship With Dave Pakos

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Dave Pakos) — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 05:05:12 +0000

In this insightful Dave Pakos podcast episode of Just Keep Learning, Justin sits down with the former teacher turned online writer and solopreneur.

Dave shares his transformative journey from the traditional world of teaching to carving out a space for himself as a writer, freelancer, and business builder. Along the way, Dave dives deep into the challenges of pursuing an unconventional path, the value of personal development, and the importance of leveraging systems to create sustainable success.

Whether you’re an aspiring solopreneur, a creative looking to scale, or someone questioning the "safe" path society laid out for you, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiring takeaways.

From Teaching to Solopreneurship

Dave’s story begins in the classrooms of Germany, where he taught English and Physical Education to students aged 13 to 18. While teaching is a noble profession, Dave found himself questioning if he wanted to spend the next 30 years doing the same thing. His curiosity and drive to explore other opportunities led him to learn animation, freelancing as a creator of explainer videos. Over time, he transitioned into online writing—a field that offered him the leverage and scalability he was seeking.

Key Lessons on Breaking Free From Traditional Careers

Dave emphasizes that transitioning from a traditional career to solopreneurship is rarely seamless. He shares two vital strategies that helped him along the way:

Start Before You Quit: Begin building your side hustle before leaving your primary job. Dave started taking on freelance animation projects months before he left teaching, giving him a head start.
Build a Runway: Save enough money to cover 12 to 24 months of expenses. Having a financial safety net allowed Dave to navigate the early, uncertain months of freelancing without the pressure of immediate success.

The Power of Writing Online

As Dave ventured into online writing, he discovered its unique ability to build leverage. Writing—whether in tweets, threads, or newsletters—enables creators to share ideas and reach thousands, even millions, with minimal input. However, he quickly realized that online writing is vastly different from academic or traditional forms of writing. Here are his top tips for aspiring writers:

Write Like You Speak: Ditch the jargon and keep it conversational.
Inject Your Personality: Share personal stories and opinions to stand out in a saturated market.
Always Make It About the Reader: Even when sharing your journey, tie your insights back to how they can help your audience.

Navigating the Challenges of Entrepreneurship

Dave candidly shares some of the mental roadblocks he faced, such as the discomfort of selling his services and overcoming "shiny object syndrome." These challenges are universal for many solopreneurs, but he’s learned to stay focused on his primary goal of building systems that allow him to spend more time with family while maintaining financial stability.

Inspiration for the Next Generation

Dave’s advice for young people and anyone feeling stuck is simple but profound: don’t blindly follow the path society sets for you. Instead, take the time to figure out what you truly want. Reflecting on his journey, he encourages others to:

Question societal norms.
Learn from mistakes and pivots.
Build a life aligned with your values and interests.

Advice for Aspiring Creators

Embrace Building in Public: Share your learning journey openly to connect with like-minded people and grow your audience.
Focus on Just-in-Time Learning: Avoid consuming content you don’t need immediately. Instead, learn as you go and apply knowledge in real time.
Take Action Over Perfection: The only way to grow is to start, even if you don’t feel ready.

Memorable Quotes

“You have to start to become great; you don’t have to be great to start.”

“If you want to stand out online, you have to share parts of your story.”

“Leverage allows you to do the same amount of work but multiply your output exponentially.

“Education should be free, but the packaging, speed, and accountability of paid courses are invaluable.”

Guest Bio

Dave Pakos is a former teacher turned freelance animator and online writer.

His journey from the classroom to solopreneurship is a testament to the power of curiosity, self-education, and persistence. Today, Dave helps others navigate the transition to online writing and solopreneurship through social media, newsletter and creator business.

Be sure to follow Dave to learn more about his work and insights.

And check out this episode for a deeper dive into Dave’s journey and to glean wisdom you can apply to your own life and career!

Follow Dave

LinkedIn: @davepakos
X: @DavePakos

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Lifesaving Wisdom: Balancing Fatherhood, Anesthesiology and Creativity

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 19:08:09 +0000

In this thought-provoking episode of the Just Keep Learning podcast, Dustin “the Dad” shares his personal and professional journey, blending wisdom on fatherhood, content creation, and the delicate balance between ambition and family life.

Dustin opens up about his experiences as a father, an anesthesiologist, and a podcaster, highlighting the lessons he's learned from juggling these roles. From the camaraderie of his podcast team to the life-and-death stakes of his medical career, Dustin brings a wealth of insight on staying present, building strong connections, and finding purpose in creative outlets.

Whether you’re a parent, a content creator, or someone striving for work-life balance, this episode offers a compelling mix of inspiration and actionable advice.

The Importance of Being Present

Dustin emphasizes that being present is not just about physically showing up but giving your full attention to your loved ones. He shares how distractions like phones can diminish the quality of family interactions and recommends practical steps, such as keeping devices out of reach during family time, to foster deeper connections.

Building Community Through Podcasting

Dustin takes us behind the scenes of the Present Fathers Podcast, explaining how a casual group of friends evolved into a purposeful project. The show began as conversations among friends who wanted to support each other through the challenges of fatherhood. Over time, it grew into a platform for inspiring and educating dads on being more present, resilient, and intentional. Dustin reflects on how teamwork, camaraderie, and shared passion have fueled their success.

Lessons from Medicine and Emotional Resilience

As an anesthesiologist, Dustin operates in high-stakes environments, making him deeply attuned to the importance of perspective and emotional intelligence. He talks about how these experiences have influenced his approach to fatherhood and relationships. Whether it's ensuring patient safety or being emotionally present for his family, Dustin emphasizes the value of staying calm under pressure and leading with compassion.

Juggling Careers and Content Creation

Dustin discusses the challenges and joys of balancing a demanding medical career with his passion for podcasting and content creation. He highlights the creative outlet that podcasting provides and explains how it helps him connect with others while also growing personally. His advice for aspiring content creators? Focus on improving your craft over time, and don’t get discouraged by slow growth. Instead, enjoy the process and let your audience grow naturally.

Advice for Aspiring Dads and Creators

Be Present: Invest your full attention in your loved ones.
Fill Your Own Cup: Balance self-care with family responsibilities.
Work as a Team: Whether in podcasting or parenting, collaboration is key.
Don’t Rush Growth: Take time to hone your craft and let your audience grow steadily.
Value Connections: Foster meaningful relationships with your family and community.

Memorable Quotes

"The most loving thing you can give someone is your attention."

"Your phone can harm your relationships more than you realize—put it away and be present."

"Growth should be slow and steady. It’s about becoming deserving of your audience."

Guest Bio

Dustin “the Dad” is a seasoned anesthesiologist, content creator, and co-host of the Present Fathers Podcast. Passionate about building connections and sharing wisdom, Dustin combines his professional expertise and personal journey to inspire others. From life-saving moments in the operating room to laughter-filled conversations on his podcast, Dustin is dedicated to helping others live intentionally and build meaningful relationships.

Be sure to check out Dustin’s work on the Present Fathers Podcast and connect with him on X (@Dustinthedad) for more insights and updates!

CONNECT WITH DUSTIN
X: @dustinthedad

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN
Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
X @JustinNolan_JKL
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9-to-5 to Creative Freedom: How Janis Ozolins Built a Visual Storytelling Empire

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Janis Ozolins) — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 17:28:53 +0000

Janis Ozolins has turned his passion for simplifying complex ideas into a thriving career as a visual storyteller and educator. Discover how he transitioned from a traditional 9-to-5 job into a life of creative independence, building a business that aligns with his values and serves an engaged audience.

In this inspiring episode of Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan chats with Janis about the power of visuals in communication, the challenges of breaking into creative work, and the importance of intrinsic motivation. Janis shares his journey, from discovering his love for creating visuals to helping others find clarity and connection through his work.

Janis’ Journey to Visual Storytelling

Janis began his creative journey while working in IT project management. Inspired by thinkers like Tim Ferriss and Jack Butcher, he explored the concept of explaining ideas visually, starting with scrappy experiments on Instagram. Despite facing years of low traction, Janis stayed consistent and eventually found his unique style—a clean, impactful method of distilling big ideas into simple visuals.

By focusing on creating value and building an audience ethically, Janis transitioned from his 9-to-5 to a thriving creative business, proving the power of persistence.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

In the early days of his creative journey, Janis struggled with the same doubts that hold many creators back. However, he believed in his ability to “figure things out” and stayed curious about learning and growth. This mindset helped him overcome roadblocks and discover his strengths, inspiring him to share his process with others.

The Business of Visuals

Janis now offers a course on visual storytelling, helping aspiring creators and marketers bring their ideas to life. He emphasizes that you don’t need to be a professional designer to make an impact. Instead, focus on delivering your message clearly and authentically—an approach that has resonated with his audience.

For those interested in turning their visual skills into income, Janis highlights opportunities like freelance gigs, online courses, and even publishing books. His own journey includes a book deal, bringing his unique approach to a broader audience.

Lessons for Aspiring Creators

Start Ugly: Don’t let perfectionism hold you back. Focus on getting your ideas out there and refining over time.
Build Relationships: Collaborate with peers and connect with mentors to stay motivated.
Stay Curious: Pursue the topics and styles that excite you—it will keep you intrinsically motivated to create.
Leverage the Internet: The digital age offers limitless opportunities to build, share, and monetize your work.

Memorable Quotes

“I believe in my ability to figure things out. That belief kept me moving forward when I had no results.”
“Focus on delivering the idea, not perfection. Ugly, scrappy visuals that communicate effectively can still be impactful.”
“If you build an audience ethically, there will always be ways to monetize.”

Guest Bio

Janis Ozolins is a visual creator and educator who helps others explain ideas visually. With a background in IT project management, Janis transitioned to creative work through years of experimentation and intrinsic motivation. He now teaches others to harness their creativity through his online course, visuals, and upcoming book.

Follow Janis Ozolins

Website: ozolinsjanis.com
Instagram: @ozolinsjanis
Twitter: @ozolinsjanis

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN

Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
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TikTok @justkeeplearning.ca
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LinkedIn – @justinnolan

The Path to Building Personal Brands and Navigating the Creator Economy

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Bob Gentle) — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:56:22 +0000

Bob Gentle is a master of personal branding and a guide for introverts and outliers. Discover how he transformed a career in search and rescue into a journey of helping creators and entrepreneurs build impactful personal brands.

In this inspiring episode of Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan chats with Bob Gentle about dreaming big, overcoming fear, and building a meaningful presence in the creator economy. Known for his expertise in personal branding and digital marketing, Bob shares powerful stories from his unique career path, offering actionable advice for creators at every stage of their journey.

Bob’s Journey to Personal Branding

Bob began his career in the high-stakes world of search and rescue, where he spent 15 years confronting danger and embracing discomfort. This experience taught him invaluable lessons about teamwork, courage, and growth. Transitioning into the creator economy, Bob applied these lessons to help entrepreneurs and creators amplify their voices and build personal brands with clarity and authenticity.

Overcoming Fear and Embracing Discomfort

Bob reflects on his early fears around visibility and content creation, sharing how he worked through self-doubt to build a thriving business. “Fear is just the unknown,” he explains. By leaning into discomfort and embracing challenges, Bob found not only personal growth but also the freedom to create authentically.

Building a Personal Brand with Intention

Bob emphasizes the importance of being intentional with personal branding. Everyone has a personal brand—it’s what people think of you when you’re not in the room. By aligning your message with your goals and focusing on your strengths, you can create a brand that resonates deeply with your audience. Bob advises creators to focus on their unique voice and remain authentic, even when facing criticism.

Lessons in Collaboration and Monetization

Drawing from his background in search and rescue, Bob highlights the power of collaboration. “You can go far alone, but you go faster and further with others,” he says. He also shares insights into monetizing your personal brand, from high-value offers like workshops and retreats to creative collaborations that amplify reach and impact.

Best Practices for Aspiring Creators

For new creators, Bob’s advice is clear: start small, stay consistent, and don’t wait for perfection. “Big dreams don’t require a perfect plan. They require action,” he says. Whether you’re a writer, podcaster, or visual creator, focus on what lights you up and lean into areas that feel uncomfortable—that’s where the growth happens.

Bob Gentle’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience, authenticity, and dreaming big. This episode is packed with wisdom for anyone looking to build a personal brand, overcome fear, and make a meaningful impact. Dive into the episode, and start your journey to greatness today!

Memorable Quotes

“One-third of people won’t like you, one-third won’t care, but one-third will love you. Focus on those people.”
“Fear is simply the unknown. Make the unknown known, and it’s no longer scary.”
“The hero doesn’t know the end of the journey. He becomes the hero because he starts traveling.”

Guest Bio

Bob Gentle is a personal branding expert, podcast host, and digital marketing consultant who helps creators and entrepreneurs amplify their voices in the digital space. With a background in search and rescue and a passion for helping introverts and outliers succeed, Bob brings a unique perspective to the creator economy.

Follow Bob Gentle

Website – Amplify Me
LinkedIn – Bob Gentle
Twitter – @BobGentle

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN

Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
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TikTok @justkeeplearning.ca
Facebook justkeeplearning
LinkedIn – @justinnolan

Passion to Purpose: Danny Miranda’s Journey to Finding Freedom in Podcasting and Life

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Danny Miranda) — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:53:16 +0000

In this inspiring episode of Just Keep Learning, Justin Nolan sits down with Danny Miranda to discuss the path to podcasting success, embracing discomfort, and finding true freedom in both life and content creation. Known for his podcast The Danny Miranda Podcast, Danny dives into the mental aspects of podcasting, shares insights from his journey, and emphasizes the power of resilience and personal growth.

Danny's Journey to Podcasting
Danny began podcasting with a goal to reach 100 episodes, promising himself he’d re-evaluate after that milestone. Instead of quitting, he pushed forward and eventually surpassed 400 episodes, even when external validation was lacking. He shares his early struggles and how pushing through helped him build confidence in his craft, ultimately proving that persistence pays off.

Overcoming Self-Doubt
Danny reflects on his journey of self-discovery, finding purpose in podcasting even when it didn’t seem like others understood his vision. His insights remind us that sometimes we need to press on, trusting that we’re on the right path—even if others don’t see it.

Navigating Family Support and Challenges
Living with his parents during his early years of podcasting, Danny describes the challenges of explaining his non-traditional career to his family. Although supportive, his parents sometimes questioned his choices, adding another layer of complexity. Danny’s reflections on balancing family expectations with personal ambitions highlight the importance of perseverance and self-belief.

Building Confidence as a Creator
Danny emphasizes the importance of leaning into discomfort, sharing that initially, he wasn’t comfortable on camera. Over time, however, he learned to embrace video as part of his podcasting process, eventually leading to interviews with high-profile guests like Gary Vaynerchuk. Danny’s experiences remind creators that pushing through discomfort can lead to new skills and opportunities.

Lessons in Financial Sustainability
Danny also discusses the financial side of content creation, explaining that he took odd jobs while living at home to sustain his podcasting journey. His practical advice underlines that sometimes, it’s necessary to make sacrifices and find creative ways to support oneself when starting a passion project.

Best Practices for Aspiring Podcasters
For new podcasters, Danny’s advice is simple: embrace the journey and identify where you feel uncomfortable. This discomfort is often an indicator of where you have room to grow. Danny believes that every creator should start by exploring their unique voice, even if it means taking on multiple roles—from editing to publishing—early on.

Memorable Quotes

“Where are you uncomfortable in this process? Lean into it, because that's where freedom lies.”
“The story we’re acting out today may be important now, but life is full of seasons—your priorities will shift.”
“I want to be the emotionally intelligent father I felt I never had, and that drives my passion for connecting with others.”

Guest Bio
Danny Miranda is the host of The Danny Miranda Podcast, where he interviews top achievers and unique personalities. Known for his genuine curiosity and thoughtful questions, Danny creates meaningful conversations that encourage listeners to find personal freedom and live authentically. Through his podcast, Danny is redefining what it means to be an interviewer in the creator economy.

Follow Danny Miranda

Newsletter – The Danny Miranda Podcast
X – @heydannymiranda
Instagram – @heydannymiranda

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN

Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
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TikTok @justkeeplearning.ca
Facebook justkeeplearning
LinkedIn – @justinnolan

From Wall Street to YouTube: How Aprilynne Alter Built a Thriving Online Brand

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Aprilynne Alter) — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 18:42:45 +0000

In this episode of Just Keep Learning, Justin sits down with Aprilynne Alter, a multi-passionate YouTuber and content creator. They explore the journey of becoming a creator, what it means to be an anomaly, and the mindset required to go from a traditional career to building a brand online. From deep dives into YouTube strategies to life design principles, Aprilynne shares a wealth of practical advice for aspiring creators and entrepreneurs alike.

Guest Background

Aprilynne Alter is a former Wall Street financial analyst turned full-time YouTube creator and educator. After an eye-opening internship in Silicon Valley, she realized that she didn’t want to follow a traditional career path. Now, she's on a mission to help other aspiring YouTubers find their voice, build their channels, and achieve success in the digital space. Aprilynne’s story is one of courage, self-belief, and the willingness to be different.

Key Topics Discussed

The Power of Being an Anomaly

Aprilynne shares how she’s embraced the concept of being an anomaly. Inspired by a quote, possibly from Gary Vee, she explains that if you want a life that's different from the norm, you have to act differently. This mindset has driven her decisions to leave the traditional path behind and pursue a unique career as a creator. She emphasizes that being an anomaly isn’t just about being different—it's about giving yourself permission to create in a way that aligns with your true values.

From Wall Street to Content Creation

Aprilynne recounts her transition from working as a financial analyst on Wall Street to becoming a full-time YouTuber. A pivotal moment occurred when she realized what success looked like in her corporate environment—a Friday night call, her manager pushing aside family time to handle work issues—and she knew she wanted something different. She discusses the challenges of making that leap and the belief in herself that pushed her forward despite doubts and obstacles.

Finding Your Unique Advantages

When making the decision to leave Wall Street, Aprilynne focused on her unique strengths, such as writing, visual artistry, and community building. These were talents she wasn't utilizing in her traditional career, and she knew they could be leveraged to create a meaningful impact in the creator space. This section dives into the importance of identifying your own unique advantages and using them to differentiate yourself in the market.

Growing a Successful YouTube Channel

Aprilynne goes into detail about the importance of having a solid strategy when it comes to YouTube. She shares her experience of starting her first channel, having it blow up with an NFT-related video, and then pivoting to create a second channel that felt more aligned with her passions. She emphasizes focusing on quality vs. quantity, the importance of ideas, and how to structure a successful video.

Editing Tips for YouTube Creators

Editing is a major part of Aprilynne’s creative process. She shares her detailed approach, from scripting to annotating her videos with visual elements and examples, to making sure the content is engaging and educational. Her editing style is heavy on visuals and examples, which she believes are key for effective learning on YouTube.

Challenges and Opportunities in the Creator Economy

Aprilynne highlights some of the struggles creators face, such as dealing with burnout, learning new skills, and finding ways to monetize content. She discusses her vision for a creator accelerator program similar to Y Combinator—an incubator for creators to help them achieve their goals faster with proper support and resources.

Memorable Quotes

“If you want to be an anomaly, then act like one.”
“I realized that if success in my career meant sacrificing family time on a Friday night, that’s not the kind of success I wanted.”
“Your unique advantages are like your creative superpowers—use them to differentiate yourself.”
“Execution is hard, and it’s where most people give up, but it's also the key to finding success.”
“I believe in small bets—trying lots of different things to see what works while increasing your luck surface area.”

Practical Takeaways for Aspiring Creators

Act Like an Anomaly: To achieve a unique life, you need to act differently from the norm and embrace your creative quirks.
Identify Your Strengths: Know your unique advantages and find ways to integrate them into your content.
Focus on Packaging: When creating for YouTube, your idea, title, and thumbnail are critical for attracting an audience.
Balance Quantity and Quality: Start with quantity to build a habit, then shift to quality once you’ve developed a consistent workflow.
Script and Annotate: Before filming, annotate your script with visual cues to streamline editing and avoid unnecessary reshoots.
Find Your Niche: Have a focused niche that aligns across all your platforms, making it easier to build a brand and monetize.
Think About Longevity: Don’t focus solely on short-term gains. Consider the long-term impact you want to make with your content.

Aprilynne Alter’s journey is a powerful testament to the courage it takes to pursue a creative path, even when it means leaving behind a stable and traditional career. Her story is filled with valuable lessons about self-belief, identifying your strengths, and strategically building a brand that aligns with your passions. Whether you’re an aspiring YouTuber or a creator in any field, Aprilynne’s advice will help you take actionable steps toward your creative goals. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who’s ever felt the call to be an anomaly.

Guest Bio

Aprilynne Alter is a YouTube creator and educator focused on helping aspiring YouTubers grow their channels. A former financial analyst on Wall Street, Aprilynne made a dramatic pivot to content creation, where she now teaches everything she’s learned through her own experiences. She runs a YouTube channel that shares deep dives into strategies, tactics, and tools for success on the platform. Aprilynne is also the creator of a YouTube course, providing a comprehensive guide for those who want to take their channels to the next level.

Links to Follow Aprilynne Alter

YouTube: Aprilynne Alter's Channel
X: @Aprilynnealter
Instagram: @Aprilynnealter

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN

Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
X @JustinNolan_JKL
TikTok @justkeeplearning.ca
Facebook justkeeplearning
LinkedIn – @justinnolan

The Courage To Be Brave

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:48:13 +0000

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I feel like that’s sort of the same thing. Haha.

They could probably be flipped too.

“The bravery to have courage”

On their own these things are easy to drop as buzzwords.
We could use them interchangeably in a way that pretty much everyone understands.

But understanding it is less than half the battle.

You probably know that it’s helpful to be brave, I mean that’s kind of obvious.
You likely wouldn’t set a goal to be less brave.

In the last episode I talked about the fact that there are hidden opportunities in every challenge we face.

But this isn't just about perseverance towards external goals.

It’s just as much, maybe more important to win the internal battle, too.

One of my favorite thinkers, Seth Godin, talks about how schools should focus on teaching courage and bravery.
That it’s critical we explicitly teach these skills in today's world.

But how do you do it?

Winning the Battle Within

Life isn't just about chasing milestones like getting a million podcast downloads or reaching a business target.

Those are great. But, the real victory lies in how we handle the obstacles life throws our way.

Can we take heartbreak, failure, or grief and channel it into something positive? Can we remain kind, generous, creative, and full of energy, even when times are tough?

I used to get this wrong. I thought working harder and longer was the key.

But I’ve learned through experience and from conversations on my podcast, like the one with Taylor Simmons, that balance is critical.

It’s not about burning ourselves out to achieve external goals. True discipline comes from building a strong foundation of mental, physical, and spiritual wellness.

Then and only then layering our ambitions on top of that foundation.
But this isn’t as much fun.

And thus why it’s a “battle” within.

Finding Balance Amid the Hustle

Fellow podcaster Ali Abdaal often asks his guests whether work-life balance is possible when pursuing big dreams?

Can you achieve balance early on? Or is it something we only attain once we’ve "made it"?

What do you think?
Is it possible to achieve “work-life balance” throughout your journey?

This is a bit of a trick question.
I believe we should always strive for balance from the beginning.

There’s no reason not to.

I used to strive for hustle and hardwork like I was always going to battle.
Life can be a lot easier than this. Even with massive dreams.

I have hundreds of goals.
Books to write, podcasts to record, business deals to close, but I’ve learned to prioritize my well-being.

I used to pull all nighters, or go without proper water, or nutrition. But now I can shut ‘er down in favor of wellness.
That’s real discipline. That’s something to be proud of.

It’s about saying no to the grind long enough to eat well, sleep well, and spend time with family and friends.
Once we have that foundation, we can stack our dreams on top of it and use all other obstacles as stepping stones, not barriers.

What Is The Path To Discipline?

Discipline is another one of the beautiful, infinite, forever games.

Building mastery over this battle within requires a shift in mindset.

One of the things that really helped me was recognizing that I’ll never get all of my ambitions achieved and that rather than it being scary, this can be a relief. It’s just facts.

Here are a few other things that can help increase discipline:

Focus on what you can control: To preserve energy for the most important tasks.
Detach from outcomes: Focus on the process and effort, instead of results.
See setbacks as setups: To keep moving forward without being perfect.
Embrace consistent action: So you don’t get stuck overthinking.
Design routines: That will almost guarantee consistency.
Build emotional control: To make better decisions.

The Power of Uncaging Your Creativity: Why We Need to Break Boundaries and Ship Our Ideas

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 16:27:28 +0000

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I WILL HELP YOU GET CLARITY, BUILD YOUR GROWTH MINDSET AND OWN YOUR BIG DREAMS

As I walked through the hospital today, I passed by a monitor displaying a message that caught my eye.

"Remember, mistakes are evidence that you're trying."

It made me smile, but it also made me think. How do we spread this message? How do we make sure everyone understands this? I already believe in it, but what about the people who don’t get it? The ones stuck in their comfort zones, afraid to step into the unknown?

Stop Chirping Post Malone

I recently heard people criticizing Post Malone for venturing into country music.

It’s hilarious to me because while he’s out there dropping an album that’s going to be a huge success, people are questioning his decision.

Why do they care? I’m sure Post Malone isn’t phased. He’ll probably jump into something completely different next—maybe a Nirvana tribute, spoken word poetry, or another experimental project.

What’s fascinating about him is his ability to ignore the noise and keep creating. I’d love to interview him to dive deeper into this mindset.

I imagine that if someone asked him why he decided to try country music, he’d probably shrug and say, “Why not?"

Why Not?

That’s the question, isn’t it?

Why not? Why not try something new, even if people don’t understand?

We often feel the need to create within strict boundaries. But most of us don’t want to fit neatly into a category, we want to explore the gray areas. In a world full of rules, expectations, and fear of failure, stepping outside the box like this is a courageous act.

Someone asked me yesterday how I define creativity?

It's a simple question, but answering it takes courage.

Creativity is such a broad topic that it’s hard to pin down. But I think the most important thing is this: it’s not about what you make; it’s about your willingness to make something at all. It’s about pushing past the limitations that have been imposed on us—by society, school, by your family, friends, and your own inner critic. Pushing all that aside and doing the work anyway.

The Cage We Build

Here’s where things get real.

Most people, at some point, get stuck.

Between kindergarten and adulthood, we’ve been told too many rules, received too much negative feedback, and started believing that we’re not creative. I’ve been there. For years, I believed I wasn’t creative because I didn’t fit the mold. But there’s a turning point—a moment where you decide to uncage your creativity and reclaim it for yourself.

Stephen Pressfield talks about resistance in his book The War of Art, the invisible force holding you back from doing the work. It’s fear. It’s doubt. It’s the voice that tells you your ideas aren’t good enough.

But here’s the thing: creativity is like a statue covered in mud. It’s still there, buried under layers of grime. All you need to do is chisel away at it, bit by bit, clean it up and let it shine.

Sometimes we need prompts or constraints to get started, and that’s okay. But don’t let those tools become a crutch. True creativity comes when we stop relying on someone else’s template and start carving our own path.

The Trap of "Realism"

A friend recently asked me if it was realistic to pursue both gaming and engineering.

This word—realistic—always catches my attention. Who gets to decide what’s realistic?

Will Smith once said that it probably seemed unrealistic for the Wright brothers to imagine flying a metal contraption into the sky. Edison? Unrealistic to think a small piece of plastic could light up a room. If you told someone 15 years ago that we’d be watching movies on tiny pieces of glass and plastic in our pockets, they would have laughed. But here we are…

The point is, we can’t be afraid of being unrealistic.

The world’s greatest innovations were once dismissed as impossible. If we constantly seek validation for our ideas—asking others if they think it’s realistic—we’re building an imaginary boundary for ourselves. Creativity doesn’t need boundaries.

Creativity Requires Courage

This brings me back to Post Malone.

He didn’t ask for permission to explore country music, and he certainly didn’t need validation from critics. He just did it.

And you can do the same with your ideas. Yes, there will be resistance. Society will always try to keep you within its boundaries, telling you to be realistic. But even a small step outside that box—one bold idea, one act of courage, putting a little of your own skin in the game—can change your life.

And who knows?
It might change someone else’s too.

Uncaging Your Creativity

I actually spoke with the producers of a documentary I love called ‘Abstract’ about my own idea of producing a film called “uncaging creativity” where we follow people who lost their creative touch, but went on a journey to not just regain it, but thrive in a creative pursuit.

The whole concept is kind of based on my life. I stopped creating because I thought that was the “mature” thing to do.
But now I realize that I’m supposed to use the right side of my brain as much as possible. It’s who I am (for life).

Now if I did it, you can too!
If you feel like your creativity is blocked, don’t worry. You can uncage it.

I’ll share some bullet points, basically a checklist for regaining your creativity. But overall, start by recognizing that great ideas often seem crazy at first. You do not need validation. In fact, most people won’t get it, and that’s okay. You don’t need a perfect plan. If it was simple to understand, or easy to do then other people would be doing it. This is why it takes bravery, curiosity, and a willingness to explore your ideas, make mistakes and keep going further into the unknown.

A Checklist For Uncaging Creativity

Action over words: Don’t just talk about your ideas—act on them.
Embrace discomfort: Push through the fear of failure and take on difficult tasks.
Build routines: Establish habits that make creativity a natural part of your life.
Detach from outcomes: Focus on the process, not the result.
Perseverance: Keep pushing forward, or pivot even when things get tough.
Commit to self-improvement: It’s you vs you. Aim to get better, no matter where you start.

There ya have it! Now I'd love to be able to support your work.
The world needs your unique voice, and it’s time to uncage your creativity.
So here’s my question for you: What will you create? What will you share?

Be sure to actually reach out and let me know.

The Art of Design & Multi-Passionate Entrepreneurship With Nate Kadlac

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Nate Kadlac) — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 14:13:36 +0000

In this Nate Kadlac podcast on Just Keep Learning we tackle what it means to be a multi-passionate designer, entrepreneur, and creator.

Nate dives into his journey in the creator economy, sharing insights on balancing multiple projects, collaborating with others, and building a strong personal brand.

His creative process, practical advice, and honest reflections provide actionable steps for anyone looking to thrive in the world of creative entrepreneurship. Whether you're a designer, solopreneur, or creative in any field, this episode is packed with valuable insights on navigating multiple passions while staying true to your vision.

The Challenge of Being Multi-Passionate

Nate discusses the common struggle between focusing on one thing versus being multi-passionate.

In today's creator economy, many entrepreneurs are told to "niche down," but Nate believes that embracing multiple interests can provide more fulfillment. He shares how he manages several different projects—like design, collaborations, and content creation—without feeling overwhelmed.

Nate emphasizes that the key to successfully juggling various pursuits is recognizing that each interest may grow at a different pace. While focusing on one thing might bring faster success, he values the slower, more meaningful growth that comes from pursuing multiple passions.

For creators struggling to pick just one path, Nate’s advice is to embrace what you love, but be prepared for the journey to take a bit longer.

The Power of Collaboration

A major theme in Nate’s work is collaboration, which he sees as a way to amplify creativity and make work more enjoyable. He talks about his own experiences working on design projects and game development with friends, emphasizing how collaboration can breathe new life into a project. The joy of working with others not only helps to balance solo work but can also lead to unexpected growth.

Nate shares practical tips for approaching collaboration, including building genuine relationships first. He highlights the importance of understanding what each party brings to the table and ensuring that every collaboration is mutually beneficial. Whether you’re a designer, entrepreneur, or creator, Nate’s collaboration strategies are invaluable for anyone looking to build alongside others.

Building a Personal Brand Through Design

As a designer, Nate understands the importance of building a brand that is authentically you. He stresses that design is more than just picking the latest trends—it's about creating a visual identity that reflects your true self. Nate’s process for helping creators make better design decisions starts with understanding their unique style and translating it into something cohesive across all platforms.

He explains the power of consistency in design and how using a few simple tools, like selecting the right typography, can make a huge difference in elevating your brand. Nate offers practical advice for creators, recommending that they focus on timeless design principles instead of following fleeting trends. His insights encourage creators to trust their own taste and build a brand that resonates deeply with their personal identity.

Practical Takeaways for Creators and Entrepreneurs

Trust Your Multi-Passionate Journey: It’s okay to pursue multiple interests, but be prepared for slower growth. Learn to balance and give yourself permission to move at your own pace.
Collaboration Over Competition: Seek out collaborations that bring value to both parties. Be clear about expectations and ensure each person is contributing in a way that feels fair and enjoyable.
Design With Intention: When building your personal brand, don’t just rely on templates. Invest time in understanding your aesthetic and design choices. Keep your design decisions consistent to reflect who you are.

Memorable Quotes

"The key to design is not creating something new, but finding what’s unique about your perspective and expressing that visually."
"Reaching out to collaborate is less about asking for something and more about building genuine relationships."
"Trust yourself. Your tastes and interests are what make your design decisions powerful."

Guest Bio

Nate Kadlac is a designer, entrepreneur, and creator with a passion for helping others make better design decisions. From web design to creating courses and collaborating on game development, Nate brings a wealth of knowledge to creative entrepreneurship.

Connect With Nate

Website Kadlac.Com
X @Kadlac

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN

Instagram @Justkeeplearning.ca
YouTube @justkeeplearningpodcast
X @JustinNolan_JKL
TikTok @justkeeplearning.ca
Facebook justkeeplearning
LinkedIn – @justinnolan

Secrets of Successful Ghostwriting & Publishing With Patrick Walsh

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Patrick Walsh, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:36:28 +0000

In this Patrick Walsh Podcast episode, we dive deep into the world of ghostwriting, publishing, and storytelling.

Patrick is the founder of Publishing Push. With over 4,000 authors helped, Patrick brings unique insights into turning ideas into books that stand out in a crowded market. Whether you're an aspiring author or just curious about the book publishing process, this episode offers amazing advice on navigating the publishing process.

Patric is also known as “The Publishing Guy”. He creates content that helps with writing, living as an author and publishing as he is a seasoned expert in ghostwriting, packaging and marketing books as well.

Through his company, Publishing Push, he’s been instrumental in helping creatives across all genres—from children’s books to business guides—turn their stories into tangible, successful products.

His method revolves around capturing the authentic voice of the author and translating it into a compelling narrative. Patrick’s passion for storytelling shines through, and his expertise in the intricate world of publishing makes him the go-to person for anyone looking to write and publish a book.

Key Topics Discussed

The Art of Ghostwriting: Patrick explains ghostwriting as a process of truly understanding the author’s voice and communicating their message seamlessly. Whether it’s social media content, a YouTube script, or a full-length book, his goal is for the audience to never question who the real author is. From extensive research into an author’s style to tailoring each chapter to match their tone, Patrick shares how this form of writing is both an art and a science.
The Power of Storytelling: We explore how powerful stories create emotional connections with readers. Patrick emphasizes the importance of weaving personal stories into books to make them relatable and memorable. Even when writing business books, personal anecdotes make the content more engaging and impactful.
Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: Patrick sheds light on the pros and cons of different publishing methods. From self-publishing’s growing popularity to the challenges and unpredictability of traditional publishing deals, he offers a balanced view on what aspiring authors should consider. One key takeaway: always have a clear goal for your book.
Building a Successful Book in a Crowded Market: How do you ensure your book stands out among the thousands published every day? Patrick explains the importance of genre specificity, quality editing, and professional presentation. He also discusses the value of understanding your audience and crafting a book that speaks directly to their needs and interests.

Memorable Quotes

"Ghostwriting is about capturing someone's voice so perfectly that their audience never suspects it's anyone but them."
"Personal stories are what make your book come alive. They create a connection that readers remember long after they’ve finished the last page."
"Whether you're self-publishing or going the traditional route, editing is the single most important investment you can make in your book."

Advice for Aspiring Authors

Patrick advises aspiring authors to believe in their stories, no matter how big or small they think they are. Everyone has a story worth sharing, and sometimes, it’s about finding the right way to tell it. He also highlights the importance of partnering with the right team—whether it's hiring a ghostwriter, editor, or cover designer—to bring your vision to life professionally.

Guest Bio

Patrick Walsh is the founder of Publishing Push, a company that has helped over 4,000 authors successfully write and publish their books. With expertise spanning ghostwriting, editing, and marketing, Patrick has built a reputation as one of the most trusted names in the publishing industry. His passion for storytelling and helping others realize their dreams makes him a standout figure in the world of books.

Connect With Patrick

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How To Stop Overthinking

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 16:12:26 +0000

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A couple weeks ago we were sitting on the couch, my wife and I trying to pick something on Netflix, or Prime, or Disney…

But there’s just so much to choose from. It’s almost stressful because you can feel your watching time slipping away.

With so many choices we add stress to a relaxing activity.

Instead of choosing one and getting started, we scroll, debate and then it feels like we sort of “give up” and decide.

I love when real life stories like this connect to things I wanna talk about.

I was drifting off in thought about the fact that here we are sitting here.
Scrolling through streaming services looking for something to watch, it reminded me of the classic
Parable Buridan’s Donkey named after the 1300’s philosopher John Buridan.

A donkey is standing between two equally enticing nourishments.

A pile of hay, or a bowl of water.

But, they lack reason and are overwhelmed by the decision.

The donkey, unsure of which to go for, ends up dehydrated and starving to death because they couldn't make up their mind.

The moral is that overthinking can lead to inaction, which is far worse than making either choice, even the “wrong one”.

Paralyzed By Decision

This tale is a simple but powerful metaphor for how overthinking can paralyze us.

I try to remember it when it comes time to choose something.

But it’s not as important as what we can do about it to make decisions more likely.

In our case with the movies let’s say sometimes there are very strong reasons to choose.

For example I really wanna see Jelly Roll’s documentary, when Lewis Capaldi dropped his my wife and I both wanted to check it out and I loved the first Joker movie so when the second one is released I will be naturally motivated to check it out asap.

But where I get caught up in this phenomenon that actually matters (way more than trying to pick a movie) is deciding what to work on.

Just yesterday, I was talking with a creator friend of mine, Amanda Northcutt, founder of Level Up Creators. And she was asking about some of my ideas, wondering why I haven’t acted on them yet. Honestly, I didn’t have a great answer.

Trying to explain our thoughts out loud to others like this can help us realize how silly our excuses, or overthinking really is.

What was holding me back?

While driving home, I started questioning whether I was just making excuses, or if something was getting in the way.

And I realized I had allowed shiny objects to creep back into my workflow because I had way too many choices.

I was working on live video, writing a book, long form blog posts, tweet threads, visual illustrations for social media, short videos, solo podcast episodes and interviews.

Damn, it’s crazy just writing it out like this.

Wild thing is there were like three other business ideas in the works.

Everything felt “equal”.

And so when I would sit down to tackle some work I would waste a lot of time.

Hick’s Law

States that having plenty of choices affect the decision-making time of an individual.

Too little choice and they feel restricted.

But a lot of choice and they actually feel worse.

Until a certain point, offering options is good. It provides freedom to choose. But there comes a point at which the availability of too many options makes it harder for a person to make up their mind. They grow confused, stressed and don’t make a decision at all.

I see this all the time with peopl e I coach as well.
The goal of giving people freedom and joy because they get to choose can actually rob them of feeling happy at all because they’re overwhelmed.

They get trapped in overthinking.

Almost like staring at a computer with a hundred tabs open, or a restaurant menu with every option in the world—it’s overwhelming and chaotic.

Goldilocks Freedom Of Choice

There’s a lot of advice out there about decluttering your home and living more minimally.

And the same principles apply to decluttering your mind.

Simplifying your thoughts and getting started is the key to breaking free from overthinking.

But there is a Goldilocks sweet spot for everyone when it comes to choice.
And it evolves.

Some people need to be told “write a story” some need a genre, a specific prompt, or fill in the blanks.

Either way it’s important to set your priorities, and then the next step is simply to get started, with any of them.

Prioritization

Once you know the most important things to work on, then you can decide to focus on those.

So in my case right now it’s this podcast and the book.

I would love to work on all the other things and in some way, someday I will but for right now it’s the podcast and the book.

That’s step one, pick your priority.

But these are still huge projects.

So, how do I make up my mind about what to work on within those two priorities?

When we don’t have a strong reason to choose, that’s where we get stuck.

We feel like we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

But here’s the secret. It can be the opposite.

We can thrive with any of the choices.

As long as we decide.

And this is why randomness can go a long way to declutter our minds.

Randomness

When we’re kids we just randomly choose what we want to do.

But as adults a lot of our rules and feedback lead us to “weigh our options”.

Sometimes this makes sense.

A list of pros, or cons, but then you gotta pull the trigger.

Randomness to make a decision removes some reason and logic, but that’s exactly what we need sometimes.

If two options are compelling we can not use reasoning skills to decide. Sometimes the best solution to a problem is to turn to chance.

For example, my book will have sixty some chapters.

I can’t think too long about which one to work on.

I just need to pick.

Within a chapter I have many ideas, I just need to pick one and write.

The podcast is similar.

I have a document with episode ideas which is over four hundred!

If I question which topic to tackle I run out of time (and motivation) to take on any of them.

So I just need to pick one and go.

Sometimes it’s as easy as flipping a coin.

Actually related to movies (as well as restaurants) this is one of the tactics in our home.

Pull a name from a jar of movies you wanna watch, or restaurants you want to try, and what you get you get.
The moral here is all the same.

Overthinking results in wasted time and missing out.

Simply choosing a direction and taking any action is far more effective.

List out your options, put ‘em all in a jar, shake it up, pull one out and get started.

Stop Hating on Influence

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 15:20:35 +0000

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The topic of being an influencer. I was at a party this summer and people were actually jokingly, but somewhat serious, giving me a hard time about being a quote unquote influencer, which pretty quickly got the topic away from me and on to everyone discussing what this idea of being an influencer means.

And I didn't even really chime in in that situation, just made a mental note to make an episode about it later on.

But you see this on social media to people talking about the idea of being an influencer. Debating.

Whether it's a positive, or negative thing, anywhere in between.

And, to me, I think that regardless of what we think about the definition, we need to stop hating on the idea of influence.

Your Own Hero’s Journey

This is such a fun topic because it’s tied to the entire theme of my book. I could do an entire episode, even a full podcast about going on your hero’s journey.

Essentially, in any good story, there’s a hero who needs or wants something.

They set out to achieve it, face struggles, and often need a guide to help them along the way.

Ultimately, they either succeed or fail, but in some way, they learn and return with newfound wisdom.

The hero’s journey is a great metaphor for life. The reason I’m writing my book is to help you go on your own hero’s journey.

A Hero Needs Influence

So, what does this have to do with influence?

It’s funny—“influencer” has gotten a bad rep.

People tend to picture someone with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, posting about their lunch, their booty, or their biceps. But ironically, those people might have a huge following, but very little influence. Influence itself has become a misunderstood concept, and we need to reclaim it.

On the flip side, you could have just 100 followers and still wield tremendous influence over them. Possibly even changing the trajectory of their entire life.

That’s why being an influencer is pretty damn cool. Whether you’re leading a team at work, teaching a group of kids, or mentoring a few close friends, your ability to impact others is what makes you an influencer.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say we should all strive to be influencers in some way.

How Do You Influence?

It’s a bit meta.

But basically, choose a topic.

Then go on your own hero’s journey, while sharing what you learn along the way.

Decide what you want to work toward, seek guidance, learn from the ups and downs, and then come back to help other people who are just getting started themselves.

That's a real influencer.

This is real influence.

I get why the term "influencer" can be cringe-worthy, or annoying. It’s become an overused buzzword.

On one hand, it could be jealousy that makes people resent the term.
On the other hand, even influencers with millions of followers sometimes hate the label.

Well, language evolves, and terms start to take on random meanings.

But the reality is this: if you’ve impacted anyone else’s life, you are an influencer.
And I think most of us would find real joy in influencing others positively.

When I think of influence, I’m reminded of classic books like Robert Cialdini’s Influence and Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power. We could go into those another day, but to keep things simple for now, let’s focus on this core idea: you have valuable stories to tell.

You likely have many experiences that shape your overall life narrative. The story you tell yourself and the story you tell others is incredibly worthwhile.

But it requires conscious effort.

You have to build and increase your influence by paying attention to your experiences. Actively seek out ways to connect those experiences to helping others.

And it doesn’t need to be many people. (It can be) but influence isn’t about the number of followers, it’s about the impact.

And that’s something worth striving for.

Can You Live Your Dream Life?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 19:48:06 +0000

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Can You Live Your Dream Life?

I was doing some back-to-school shopping the other day with the kiddos, and something caught my attention that I wanted to share.

There are so many journals and diaries with inspirational quotes, they say things like "dream big" or "live your best life" – the kind of YOLO stuff we all recognize.

Now, I generally agree with the quotes, but the next day, I noticed a wagon filled with school supplies at a daycare, and one of the teacher’s journals said right on the front, "Live Your Dream." These things always catch my eye, and I feel like I want to take a picture to post them. Inspire some people in the process.

But this particular time it got me wondering: How much do people think about the message on the cover versus just flipping it open and using it as a pile of paper?

What Quotes Do You Live By?

I imagine that when people are selecting journals, they probably pick one that resonates with them or aligns with something they feel. Maybe if they're shopping online, they even search for a journal with a specific phrase on the front.

But how many people actually live by the words on the journal?

For example, if a journal says "Own Your Dreams," do you think one in two people who buy that journal really own their big dreams? Or is it more like one in ten, maybe even one in a hundred? I don’t know, but I think most of us can relate to owning at least one of these journals and wondering how often we live up to the big ideas written on them.

I know I think about it often because I have a few such journals with inspirational quotes, and sometimes I feel like I’m not living up to those ideals. Other times, I think I’m doing a pretty good job.

Sell Yourself On The Dream, Not The How

I really try to create practical ways to live out my dreams, even though it’s tough. I recently talked about this with Maya Marcia Weider, who built her career teaching people how to own their dreams. She’s been successful with books, workshops, and courses, even ended up on Oprah’s couch teaching people to dream big.

She reminded me that while figuring out your big dream is difficult, the hardest part isn’t how to achieve it. It’s letting go of how it happens. She told me specifically to keep going with my podcast but also to promise that I won’t worry about how it all works out.

Go Easy On Yourself

If you're like me, or how I used to be, you might feel some regret when looking at those inspirational quotes.

You might not want to dwell on them because you’re not sure if you’re living your dream life yet. But maybe you’re confident you want to – you just don’t know what that life looks like or how to own it. It’s easy to feel like you’re behind or stuck.

The best way to handle this is by balancing pride in how far you’ve come with a focus on your future self. You need to hold onto that vision like a crystal ball you’re working towards, without getting lost in it. One of my heroes calls this "keeping the moon in the window" as you move toward your dreams. Even though you might get off course or have to make adjustments along the way, you keep pushing forward.

Ditch The Regret, Learn And Move On

One of the biggest obstacles we face is holding onto regret.

Whether it’s regret over past experiences or missed opportunities, it can hold us back. I love the song "Move On" by Mike Posner because it perfectly captures this sentiment. Sometimes, you just need to move on.

We can learn from our past, but we shouldn't let it distract us from our current goals. Hanging onto regrets can be like quicksand, pulling us down instead of letting us move forward.

One challenge I find with discussions like these is that they often lead to a focus on productivity. (Which isn’t always the point).

What Gives You True Meaning?

Having worked in mental health for most of my adult life, I’ve come to believe that the most important thing is finding meaning and living with vitality. Fun and productivity are both important, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. It’s okay to slow down and appreciate how far you’ve come, instead of always feeling like you need to do more.

If you ever feel like you’re stuck or not making enough progress, one helpful exercise is to look back at where you were a year ago, or even five years ago. You’ll almost always find that you’ve made significant progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

Sometimes we’re too close to our own journey to see the growth, so it can be powerful to ask someone else to help you recognize how far you’ve come. And if I can help with that, feel free to reach out.

Another thing that holds people back is being out of alignment with what they truly want. It’s hard to celebrate progress when you’re not passionate about what you’re working on.

That’s why it’s important to realign with your current passion, purpose, or interests and choose a new direction if needed. You might find yourself feeling stuck again down the road, but when you look back, you’ll see how far you’ve come.

Decide On Your Next Steps

Finally, it helps to get clear on your strengths, weaknesses, and the direction you’re headed.

I laugh when I think back to my college football days, where we had a report card system that ranked us on our skills. It was meant to give us feedback, which is proven to be one of the most important factors in learning.

If you want to grow, feedback is essential. For me, in my podcasting journey, I know I need to improve my storytelling and marketing strategies. I also know that looking back at how far I’ve come helps me realize that I’m making progress, even when it feels slow.

By taking a step back and reflecting on your journey, you’ll see that you’ve come much further than you think. The key is to keep moving forward, even when it feels like you’re stuck.

Build a Personal Holding Company and Navigate the Creator Economy With Yong-Soo

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Yong Soo) — Mon, 9 Sep 2024 05:51:20 +0000

In this Yong Soo Podcast episode of Just Keep Learning, Justin sits down to talk with the entrepreneur and founder of multiple businesses. They dive deep into the mindset, strategies, and tools necessary for success in the creator economy.

From the critical role of the environment to the future of personal holding companies, Yong-Soo shares invaluable insights on entrepreneurship, business, and building a personal brand.

Through candid reflections, he reveals the challenges he faced, how he overcame them, and the philosophy that continues to drive him today. Whether you're just starting or looking to take your business to the next level, this episode is packed with actionable advice for founders navigating the rapidly evolving digital world.

The Power of Environment in Entrepreneurial Success

Yong-Soo emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people and environment to foster growth. His decision to move from New York to San Francisco was a pivotal moment in his journey. He shares how immersing himself in an entrepreneurial community sparked his motivation to build companies in alignment with his passions.

By removing himself from the corporate mindset of New York finance, he was able to fully embrace the possibilities of the startup world. His message? Your environment plays a huge role in normalizing your ambitions. If you want to think like an entrepreneur, you need to be around entrepreneurs.

Building a Personal Holding Company

One of the most profound topics discussed is Yong-Soo's concept of a personal holding company, which he believes is the next wave of entrepreneurship. Unlike traditional holding companies that focus on financial ROI, a personal holding company is centered around creating businesses based on personal interests and passions.

Yong-Soo has successfully built businesses around his hobbies, from everyday carry items to dog boutiques, and emphasizes that entrepreneurship can be structured to serve your life and happiness. This approach allows for greater control, personal fulfillment, and the ability to leverage multiple streams of income without the constraints of investor expectations.

Navigating the Creator Economy and Building a Personal Brand

Yong-Soo also touches on the importance of building an audience and distribution. With platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok evolving, he discusses how entrepreneurs can maximize opportunities by paying attention to macro trends and doubling down on content creation. His practical advice encourages consistency and learning from each post, as growth often comes from repetition and improving over time.

For those worried about saturation, Yong-Soo’s advice is clear: it’s all about execution and trust. Building an authentic connection with your audience and providing consistent value are the keys to standing out in an increasingly crowded space.

Practical Takeaways for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Change Your Environment: If your current environment doesn’t align with your goals, consider moving to a place where you can surround yourself with people who inspire and motivate you.
Repetition Breeds Success: Start with quantity—consistently create and publish content. Over time, focus on improving quality while maintaining that consistency.
Personal Holding Company: Consider building businesses around your hobbies and interests, allowing you to enjoy life while growing multiple streams of income.
Execution Over Ideas: It’s not about access to tools or ideas anymore; it’s about execution. Focus on standing out through consistent effort and execution.

Memorable Quotes

"Your environment is constantly gathering information around you and normalizing what’s okay and what’s not. If your surroundings don’t align with your goals, it’s time to move."

"I believe the next wave of entrepreneurship is personal holding companies—building a portfolio of businesses centered around your own passions and interests."

"Repetition is the key to success. First focus on quantity, then quality, and finally master both."

Guest Bio

Yong-Soo Chung is an entrepreneur, founder, and host of the First Class Founders podcast.

He is a serial entrepreneur bootstrapping his business from $0 to $20m in just over 8 years.

With four successful businesses, including Urban EDC Supply, Spotted by Humphrey, GrowthJet, and his creator-focused newsletter and podcast, he’s an expert in building brands. Yong-Soo advocates for the power of building personal holding companies—an approach where entrepreneurs align their business pursuits with their passions.

Now, he's on a mission to help other founders & creators. When you follow his content you learn proven strategies to build a loyal audience, create irresistible products, and grow your business sustainably.

Follow Yong-Soo

Website: FirstClassFounders.Com

X: @Yongsoochung

LinkedIn: @YongSoo

Your Holy Shit Moment, ADHD And Writing With James Fell

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Leonard Kim) — Fri, 6 Sep 2024 03:10:58 +0000

In this insightful James Fell Podcast episode on Just Keep Learning, we explore the mind of a tremendous author, speaker, and fitness expert.

This interview came at an incredible time because it was right when I was thinking about giving up on this very show.

Then I had my own Holy Shit Moment where I realized the motivation to make it a lifelong, infinite, forever project.

James Fell is renowned for his concept of the "Holy Shit Moment."
Throughout the conversation, he shares his journey from fitness writing to history, while offering advice on finding instant motivation, writing with ADHD, and living a fulfilling life.

Authenticity and Profanity

Known as the sweary historian, a highlight is his candid discussion about using profanity to add humor and relatability to his writing.

We talk about swear words and how they have a powerful time and place in culture.

Drawing on his upbringing and career as a fitness writer, James explains how swearing allows him to connect with his audience in a unique, authentic way.

His controlled use of swearing is a key theme, demonstrating how being true to yourself can elevate your storytelling ability.

Writing with ADHD

James opens up about how being diagnosed with ADHD has influenced his writing process.

He describes how hyperfixation and the natural wandering of his ADHD mind help him create engaging and dynamic stories.

In this podcast episode, he shares his personal strategies for balancing creativity with daily life tasks, showcasing the importance of finding a workflow that suits individual needs, especially for creative professionals.

His Approach to Reading and Writing Practice

For aspiring writers, this James Fell Podcast offers essential advice on honing your craft. James highlights the importance of reading widely and writing consistently, citing Stephen King's famous axiom, "Read a lot and write a lot." In this podcast episode, he shares how his extensive reading shaped his own writing style and encourages emerging writers to embrace their early failures as part of the learning process.

Building an Audience

One of the key topics discussed is the importance of building an audience.

James reflects on how he grew his readership through social media platforms like Facebook and Substack.

In this episode, he emphasizes the evolving nature of social media and shares his journey of going from fitness writing to becoming a successful history writer.

His story is a testament to the power of persistence and adaptability in the face of changing trends.

The Journey From Fitness to Sweary History

James talks about his pivot from fitness writing to history, recounting how he built his "sweary historian" persona.

He discusses how his irreverent and humorous take on history resonated with audiences and allowed him to truly embrace his passion for storytelling.

This episode offers valuable insights into how creatives can evolve and find success by exploring new avenues, even when starting in a completely different niche.

Advice for Aspiring Creatives

Here a few practical pieces of advice listeners can take away when pursuing creative careers:

Embrace creativity: Let your mind explore different possibilities, even if it feels scattered.
Be adaptable: Success often comes from evolving and trying new things over time.
Build an audience: Start engaging with your followers and readers from day one, and don’t be afraid of slow growth.
Keep improving: Whether through reading, writing, or learning from others, the key is to never stop growing.

Memorable Quotes

“Action is the antidote to despair.”

“Controlled authenticity is the key to being true to yourself while maintaining professionalism.”

“There’s value in learning about other people’s points of view and embracing people for their differences.”

Guest Bio

James Fell is a Canadian writer known for his work in both fitness and history. He began his writing career by focusing on health and fitness, aiming to debunk common fitness myths and promote a practical approach to diet and exercise. His fitness writing was featured in several major publications like the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Men’s Health. His first book, Lose It Right, advocated for a sustainable, slow-paced approach to weight loss and fitness.

In 2019, Fell published The Holy Sh!t Moment, which explored the psychology behind life-changing epiphanies and long-term transformations. However, his career took a new turn in 2020 when he shifted his focus to history, starting with daily posts on unusual historical events. These posts gained significant attention, leading to the publication of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down, which became a best-seller in Canada.

Today, James Fell continues to write, focusing on entertaining and educating his audience through historical storytelling, while also sharing insights from his fitness journey and personal experiences.

Follow James Fell

Website:JamesFell.com
LinkedIn: @James--Fell

It's Not Worth It To Worry

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 5 Sep 2024 03:26:15 +0000

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Both my younger brothers died with beautiful dreams inside.

Very close to the day they died I was discussing with them about how to take some next steps.

But for the most part they ran out of time.

Usually that's a cliche.
“Don't die with your dreams inside”

A buzzword phrase we throw around.

But sometimes it actually happens.

I woke up a couple days ago and saw the news that Johnny Geaudreau and his brother Matthew had passed away.

Both died riding their bikes when hit by a drunk driver.

Having lost 2 brothers myself, it really put me in a difficult headspace for the day.

Not super negative.
Bringing back some pain and tears, but mostly a reminder of the fact life can end in an instant.

Today I'm talking about two important things that I find help me channel grief and worry less.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

How Do You Show Up With Confidence Before You Are Confident

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 3 Sep 2024 23:36:43 +0000

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In the last episode I talked about walking in Like The KING.

The fact that you should walk in as a boss because someday you will be there if you believe in it first.

And how anybody that we look up to as other big creators of success stories seem like overnight successes but actually figured out their belief and then built confidence over the last 10 to 20 years and they just kept going.

I want to build on that a little bit because Philosophically it's really helpful to realize that but how do we actually accomplish it?

You know the next time you post something, create a landing page, go into a meeting, or walk into your gym, or sports field, how do you walk in like you are the Queen, or King?

Swagger Sells, Humans Sell Too

You are a human right?

I know it’s a stupid question.

But if it’s true, then you are a salesperson.

Whether you like it or not you are selling who you are to the world.

You are selling what you believe in and the important messages that you need to share.
To sell is human.

And this idea of showing up like a king, showing up with swagger sells better than anything else.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Walk Like The King Or Queen

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 3 Sep 2024 02:55:49 +0000

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"Walk Like The King or Queen: How Embracing Swagger and Confidence Can Transform Your Life and Brand"

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to radiate confidence, no matter the situation? In my latest podcast episode, I sat down with marketing expert Kyle Turk to explore the surprising overlap between great marketers and Hip Hop culture. We uncovered the secret behind building magnetic personal brands—and it starts with showing up like a king or queen, even if you don't feel like one. From NFL stars to pop icons, the most successful people all share this common trait: they walk with swagger. But this isn't just about being flashy; it's about believing in your worth and letting that belief guide your actions. Ready to learn how to harness this mindset and take your brand (and life) to the next level? Tune in to discover how you can start walking like royalty today.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Personal Branding, Doing A TED Talk And Making Money With Leonard Kim

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Leonard Kim) — Mon, 2 Sep 2024 03:00:00 +0000

In this insightful Just Keep Learning podcast episode, Leonard Kim shares his journey and wisdom from both his personal and professional life.

Leonard delves into the significance of personal branding, the power of storytelling, and how vulnerability can be a game-changer in the digital world. He also talks about his experience with depression, the process of doing his TED Talk, and how he transformed his struggles into strengths.

This episode is truly inspirational and also practical. There’s a lot of advice for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of life. Whether you're a content creator, entrepreneur, or just someone looking to build a personal brand, Leonard’s insights provide valuable lessons in resilience, adaptability, and the importance of staying true to oneself.

Setting Intentions and Being Present

Leonard emphasizes the importance of being authentic and vulnerable in building a personal brand. He shares how being true to oneself is crucial for meaningful connections and long-term success.

Journey in Content Creation and Beyond

Leonard reflects on his journey in content creation, highlighting his initial struggles and the pivotal moments that led him to become a top writer on platforms like Quora. He discusses the challenges of growing an audience and the need for strategic thinking in content creation.

Overcoming Adversity and Embracing Change

Leonard shares his personal challenges, including battling depression and going through a divorce. He talks about the importance of resilience, adaptability, and finding clarity through strategic mindset shifts.

Leveraging Personal Experiences in Branding

Leonard delves into how his personal experiences, including his TED Talk and the lessons from his struggles, have shaped his approach to personal branding. He emphasizes the value of sharing authentic stories to connect deeply with audiences.

Lessons from Blogging

Blogging has been a significant part of Leonard’s life, teaching him valuable lessons about content creation, audience growth, and monetization. He discusses how blogging shaped his perspective and influenced his approach to building a personal brand.

Turning Content into a Business

Leonard talks about the journey from creating content as a hobby to turning it into a profitable business. He shares insights on monetizing content through writing, consulting, and speaking engagements.

Advice for Aspiring Creators

Commit to Personal Growth: Embrace continuous self-improvement and change.
Be Authentic and Vulnerable: Share your true self to build genuine connections.
Face Challenges Head-On: View obstacles as opportunities for growth.
Leverage Personal Stories: Use your experiences to create relatable content.
Seek Strategic Opportunities: Be strategic in your content creation and audience growth.
Balance Work and Life: Prioritize wellness and relationships alongside professional ambitions.
Embrace Change: Be adaptable and open to new directions in your career.
Focus on Long-Term Growth: Build a brand that’s sustainable and true to who you are.

Memorable Quotes

“People don't really connect with polished brands; they connect with the real, authentic you.”

“Your personal brand is a mix of who you are personally and professionally. It’s about sprinkling your essence into everything you do.”

“No one's absolutely useless; you can always serve as a bad example.”

Guest Bio

Leonard Kim is one of the world's leading experts in personal branding, marketing, SEO, writing, and building confidence. He’s known for his TED Talk, his insightful blog posts, and his ability to turn personal experiences into powerful lessons. Leonard’s journey from struggling with depression to becoming a sought-after speaker and consultant is a story of resilience, strategic thinking, and the importance of staying true to oneself in the digital world.

Follow Leonard Kim

Website: LeonardKim.com

Instagram: @MrLeonardKim

LinkedIn: @MrLeonardKim

Embrace Your Life’s Pivots Before It’s Too Late

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 03:06:04 +0000

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Embrace Your Life’s Pivots Before It’s Too Late

Do you ever feel guilty for wanting to try different things?
I certainly do. But the stuff I’ve been studying recently has really helped. I hope this helps you too.
If you know anyone else multi passionate, struggling to pick one thing, or decide on a niche, please send them my way.

So I was thinking the other day about the idea of taking on many projects, and I remembered the first time I
learning the word “pivot”. I was like 8 years old maybe.
My Dad was coaching me in basketball and he was showing me the rules of the game.
When you pick the ball up you have to keep one foot screwed to the ground, but otherwise you can move around.
What a great metaphor for life.

I've come to appreciate the power of this word pivot when it comes to life.

Once you have some safety & security (aka the foundation of wellness and self care), then feel free to go wild and try things out.

The reality is we can be scared of change, or we can find joy in change.
I think the scariest thing today is that this change can happen super fast.

A pivot is about changing direction, reorienting yourself to face a new path. I suppose this appreciation is similar to what my friend Paul talks about in his book “The Pathless Path”.

A willingness to re-imagine how we see life as a lot more random and unpredictable in ways.

Instead of a straight, linear journey down one highway, you might find some joy you wouldn't have discovered otherwise by switching roads, or even vehicles all together.

Each pivot, or new path is a chance to discover new parts of you, or those you serve.

The Reality of Modern Life

It might seem difficult to believe you can completely reinvent yourself.

But the reality is less and less of society is guaranteed these days.

As we move further away from a predictable schedule and work style society of the factory days to a much more interconnected, crazy, creative world, we can't really predict much.

Visualizing Life's Journey

Life milestones used to be pretty contained to a few major moments. Graduation, securing a career, buying a home, marriage, parenting, and well retirement.

But now, instead of five or six moments, we might have 20 or 30. A midlife crisis doesn't really need to be a thing. By midlife these days you could already have had multiple companies, traveled the world and collaborated with hundreds of people around the globe.

Embracing Change

In today's world, we often feel pressure to find one true calling. But the stories of people who did many things reminds us it's okay to take a side road, or change direction all together.

This could be in sequence, like a career change. It could be simultaneous like playing music at night and running an email newsletter by day.

It could be micro, like switching from X to Instagram as your go to social media platform to post to. Or it could be macro like becoming a graphic designer instead of a podcaster.

Insights from Barbara Sher

As a multi-passionate person who struggles with things like “finding a niche” or “focusing” Barbara Sher's book, "Refuse to Choose!" is really helpful for feeling safe to make a pivot. For feeling sane instead of psycho. Man she’s another person I wish I could interview.

She calls us "Scanners," people with multiple interests and passions who often feel pressured to pick one path but just can not!
She encourages embracing all your interests and seeing this as a strength.
According to her, allowing yourself to pivot and explore different passions while controlling the chaos just enough leads to vitality.

You know what I love telling people?

That most people get this full saying wrong:
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes is better than a master of one.”

Famous Real-Life Examples of Pivots

Let's look at some famous real-life examples of pivots. And note these are just the major changes these folks made.
They actually have a ton of other passion projects, too many to list.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

A classic example of someone who successfully pivoted multiple times.
From a Mr.Olympia bodybuilder to a wildly successful actor and eventually getting into politics.

Martha Stewart

She began her career as a stockbroker on Wall Street but later pivoted to become a successful caterer.
This venture led her to write her first cookbook, launching her into the world of publishing.
And overall she continued to build a massive empire with hundreds of business pillars.

Ken Jeong

This one is my kid’s favorite. Ken initially pursued a career in medicine, becoming a licensed physician.
However, his passion for comedy and acting led him to pivot big time. He began performing stand-up comedy and eventually became a superstar in TV and movie.

Dwayne Johnson

“The Rock" began his career as a football player, then professional wrestler. He pivoted to acting, where he is one of the most beloved, highly paid actors ever. Not content with performing, he also ventured into business, launching many successful ventures.

Snoop Dogg

Starting as a rapper, Snoop quickly became a prominent figure in the Hip Hop industry. His smooth voice and unique style brought him fame, but he didn’t stop there. He pivoted into acting, and then big time into business. But the most fun thing? The dude is competing in track and field in his mid fifties!

Focus Is Important Too

Now let me just mention something quickly.

This is not a public service announcement for “not finding focus”.

This doesn’t mean you need to make pivots.

Focusing is exactly what many people need. A single, predictable path is helpful to many of you.

What this is, is a reminder that for those of us who struggle to go super niche, or pick just one thing, you really can make big changes relatively quickly.
That we shouldn't feel guilty for wanting a change. Life’s literally too short for that shit.

Life can be a straight line from birth to death, or a squiggly one, with a lot of twists and turns.

You get to choose.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Mastering Mindset and Breaking Barriers With JT Tsui

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JT Tsui) — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 01:42:43 +0000

In this insightful JT Tsui podcast on Just Keep Learning, JT shares his journey and wisdom from both his personal and professional life.

He talks about playing and coaching football, his teaching career and pivoting to the creator economy. JT gets into the significance of being present, overcoming challenges, and finding one's true calling.

This episode is truly inspirational and also practica. There’s a lot of advice for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of life. You could be a football player, content creator, educator, or entrepreneur.

No matter what path you’re on, JT's wisdom provides valuable lessons in resilience, adaptability, and the power of being present.

Setting Intentions and Being Present

JT emphasizes the importance of being fully present and setting clear intentions for enriching conversations. Drawing inspiration from Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now," he shares how active listening and effective communication are crucial for meaningful interactions.

Journey in Education and Beyond

JT reflects on his journey in education, highlighting his initial struggles and the pivotal moments that led him to a career in coaching and content creation. He discusses the challenges of traditional education and the need for a more personalized approach to teaching and learning.

Overcoming Adversity and Embracing Change

JT shares his personal and professional challenges, including the significant career pivots he made during the COVID-19 pandemic. He talks about the importance of resilience, adaptability, and having faith in oneself when facing setbacks.

Coaching and Helping Others

JT delves into his passion for coaching and the joy he finds in helping others achieve their goals. He emphasizes the value of personalized coaching and how it allows him to connect deeply with his clients, helping them unlock their potential and overcome limiting beliefs.

Lessons from Football

Football has been a significant part of JT's life, teaching him valuable lessons about diversity, teamwork, and resilience. He discusses how the sport has shaped his perspective and influenced his approach to coaching and personal development.

Writing "You Are Greatness"

JT talks about his book, "You Are Greatness: 13 Ideas to Effortlessly Bring Calm and Joy," which encapsulates his lived experiences and insights. He shares the process of writing the book and its impact on his life and those who read it.

Advice for Aspiring Creators

Commit to Personal Growth: Embrace continuous self-improvement and change.
Be Present and Mindful: Practice being in the moment and staying grounded.
Face Challenges Head-On: View obstacles as opportunities for growth.
Prioritize Wellness and Relationships: Balance professional ambitions with health and family time.
Seek Mentorship and Guidance: Learn from those who have successfully navigated similar paths.
Adopt a Positive and Strategic Mindset: Use positive thinking and strategic planning.
Create Your Own Reality: Apply the laws of attraction to manifest desires.
Embrace New Adventures: Take risks and seek new, passion-aligned experiences.
Align Work with Passion: Pursue work that brings joy and fulfillment.
Serve Others: Use your knowledge to help others on their journey.

Memorable Quotes

“When you can be of service to others and truly help them with where they want to go, you'll always be richly rewarded.”

“Life is on divine time. Things come into your life and people come into your life exactly when they're supposed to.”
“I often remind people, you know, we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason.”

“At the end of the day, the greatest need of every human being is to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel appreciated.”

“You have to understand you have the power to create your future.”

Guest Bio

JT Tsui knows how fulfilling and challenging it can be to commit to growth because he’s walked the walk.

With a background in Kinesiology and Athletics, JT, as a logically-minded individual, initially found it unnatural to turn inward. However, through perseverance and a willingness to be vulnerable and open to change, he has made significant leaps forward in his own life.

JT’s journey began at what felt like a breaking point. On Mother’s Day in 2016, he was rushed to the hospital with a suspected appendicitis, which turned out to be a massive infection in his digestive system. Having never experienced anything like that before, he was terrified for his life.

During his recovery in the hospital and at home over the next few months, JT began to reflect on the direction his life was headed. Despite achieving considerable success by society’s standards, he knew deep down that he wasn’t living up to his full potential.

This realization marked the beginning of JT’s lifelong commitment to spiritual and personal development.

He started reading books and listening to podcasts on personal growth and self-development. JT immediately fell in love with what he was learning, and his mindset began to shift, prompting him to find ways to better himself daily. As he prioritized different actions in his life, his results began to change.

As JT continued to prioritize his daily growth, he noticed how personal development started to influence every aspect of his life. He decided to leave a successful 15-year career as a high school teacher and coach because his heart wasn’t in it anymore. Although he loved helping people, he realized he wanted to serve them outside the classroom and off the field. In his first few months away from teaching, JT hit a low point, feeling lost and confused. His career had always come naturally to him, but he knew it was costing him his wellness and his relationship with his wife and kids.

That’s when JT discovered the teachings of Bob Proctor.

Thanks to Bob Proctor, JT learned about the laws of attraction and how to create his own reality. After completing Proctor’s Thinking Into Results course, JT gained clarity on creating and living a life of FREEDOM. He learned that, contrary to his upbringing, better results could be achieved with a positive and strategic mindset, rather than just working harder.

As JT’s awareness increased and his dreams and goals became more defined, what he wanted for himself started manifesting in his life. He traveled extensively with his wife and kids to experience world cultures. He moved from London (Ontario) to Toronto to pursue the lifestyle he always dreamed of, where family and loved ones come first. He and his family redesigned their businesses to work remotely and manage their schedules.

After making a series of life-changing decisions he would never have dared to make before, JT wanted to teach others the valuable tools he had learned. To provide the best coaching possible, he decided to be mentored by Bob Proctor as a teacher of the Thinking Into Results program.

JT uses the principles of Thinking Into Results to help individuals make powerful shifts in their mindset. His passion lies in guiding driven individuals toward becoming the greatest versions of themselves.

Follow JT Tsui

Website - JTTsui.Com
Instagram - @thejttsui
LinkedIn - @jttsui

Dream Sponsorships And Life As A Content Creator With Justin Moore

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Justin Moore) — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 19:13:00 +0000

In this motivating Justin Moore Podcast on Just Keep Learning, he shares his insights for navigating the creator economy. How to secure your dream sponsorships, brand deals and make building a business around your passions much more simple.

We dive deep into the world of content creation with the founder of Creator Wizard. He built this as a school & community that teaches you how to find and negotiate your dream partnerships so you can stop leaving money on the table.

Justin Moore was an early adopter of Youtube as a lifestyle and family vlogger. Then he pivoted into building an agency for brand deals. Eventually he found his Ikigai as a leader in the creator economy. He shares this unique journey, insights, and valuable lessons learned from these years of experience.

He was willing to talk through his personal and professional challenges, from being a peer counselor in junior high to facing business setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. And reveals how these experiences led him to a successful career in sponsorship coaching, with a focus on pitching to brands and creating sustainable revenue for creators.

The conversation emphasizes the entrepreneurial mindset, personal life balance, and the urgent need for education reform to support the next generation of future content creators. How can we modernize and personalize education?

The episode concludes with a heartfelt message about overcoming adversity and having faith in oneself. This moment, and many others really show how much passion and personal care Justin has for this community of content creators.

The Journey to Creator Wizard

Justin’s journey from being a peer counselor in junior high to becoming a sought-after sponsorship coach is nothing short of inspiring. He emphasizes the importance of personal stories and experiences, which have shaped his empathetic approach to helping others. From his early life experiences to his professional transitions, Justin's story is a testament to resilience and adaptability.

Navigating COVID-19 Challenges

One of the pivotal moments in Justin's career was during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an owner of an influencer marketing agency, he faced significant challenges that forced him to pivot and focus on his strengths. This experience not only shaped his career path but also provided valuable lessons in business resilience and adaptability.

Mastering Sponsorships

Justin offers a comprehensive guide to understanding sponsorships. He explains the different types of sponsorships, effective outreach strategies, and the importance of making pitches relevant to potential partners. His practical advice, encapsulated in his "rope method," provides a structured approach to securing sponsorships that can be applied by both new and experienced creators.

Choosing the Right Platform

For new creators, selecting the right platform is crucial. Justin advises focusing on the target audience and understanding where they consume content. His insights help creators make informed decisions about which platforms to prioritize, whether it's YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, or blogs.

Educational Philosophy and Personalization

Justin's approach to teaching is rooted in personalization. He discusses the importance of catering to different learning styles and how he serves creators through customized content. This personalized approach not only enhances the learning experience but also builds trust and credibility with his audience.

Supporting the Next Generation

A significant part of Justin's mission is to support and educate the next generation of content creators. He highlights the need for educational systems to evolve and adapt to the growing interest in content creation as a viable career path. Justin's work aims to fill this gap and provide the necessary tools and knowledge for aspiring creators.

Balancing Work and Personal Life

Justin also shares his thoughts on balancing work with personal life, emphasizing the importance of family and personal fulfillment. His reflections offer valuable insights for creators striving to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Best Practices For Getting Great Sponsorships As A Content Creator

Treat Content Creation as a Business :Adopt a professional mindset with a strategic plan and objective execution

Be Authentic and Connect: Share personal stories and be vulnerable to deepen audience connection

Diversify and Grow Influence: Utilize multiple platforms to reach diverse audience segments and grow influence

Practice Sustainability: Avoid burnout through breaks, outsourcing, and audience feedback

Create Compelling Promotions: Learn how to develop effective promotions and ads
Know Your Brand Partnerships: Align proposals with brand goals and maintain professionalism

Memorable Quotes

“You should not wait for brands to come to you. You reach out to them, pitch something that would get them not only really excited about working with you, but wanting to compensate you financially and not just with free stuff”

“You can be strategic with this stuff. Create organic content that serves your audience and also supports the brands you want to work with. Get a bunch of awesome feedback, comments and engagement from your audience. Then use that evidence in your pitch.”

“I really know myself and know that I just love the process of entrepreneurship.”

Guest Bio

Justin Moore is a Sponsorship Coach & the founder of Creator Wizard, a school & community that teaches you how to find & negotiate your dream brand partnerships so that you stop leaving thousands on the table.

Along with his wife April, he has been a full-time creator since 2014 and has personally made $4M working with brands.

He also ran an influencer marketing agency for over 7 years that has helped other creators earn millions more.

Justin brings a very unique perspective because not only has he been a creator in the trenches doing sponsorships for years but by running an agency, he has insider knowledge of how big brands choose which influencers to partner with and why they pass on others. Justin's mission is to enable creators big and small to land 1 million paid brand partnerships by 2032.

Follow Justin

Website - Creator Wizard
X - @JustinMooretfam
YouTube - @JustinMoore
LinkedIn - Justinmoore

Authenticity And Sustainability As An Influencer With Kaya Marriott

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Kaya Marriott) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 21:57:51 +0000

In our latest episode, the Kaya Marriott podcast episode on JKL where we dive deep into the world of content creation. Kaya is an influencer, blogger at Comfy Girl Curls and filmmaker who passionately creates content that resonates with her audience.

In today's episode, we explore the realities of the creator economy, the importance of authenticity, and practical tips for sustainable social media engagement. Kaya's journey from a small influencer to a full-time content creator is packed with valuable insights and lessons for anyone looking to thrive in this space.

The Creator Economy is a Long-Term Path

Kaya emphasizes that the creator economy is not a get-rich-quick scheme but a viable long-term career path. She shares her experience of transitioning from a hobbyist blogger to a professional content creator by adopting a business mindset. This shift involved creating income and expense spreadsheets, identifying multiple revenue streams, and showing up intentionally online. The takeaway is clear: treat content creation as a business, and it will start to yield business-like results.

The Power of Authenticity

Authenticity is a recurring theme in Kaya's success. She highlights the importance of showing up authentically, whether in her Instagram stories or blog posts. This genuine approach not only strengthens the connection with her audience but also attracts brands that align with her values. Kaya's advice is to share personal stories, be vulnerable, and let your true self shine through your content.

Leveraging Multiple Platforms

Kaya's multi-platform strategy is another key aspect of her success. While Instagram remains her primary platform, she also leverages YouTube, Pinterest, and her blog to reach different segments of her audience. Each platform serves a unique purpose: Instagram for community building, YouTube for long-form content, Pinterest for driving traffic, and her blog for in-depth articles. This diversified approach not only broadens her reach but also mitigates the risks associated with platform-specific changes.

Sustainable Social Media Practices

Sustainability in content creation is crucial to avoid burnout. Kaya shares her approach to maintaining a healthy balance between work and personal life. This includes taking breaks, outsourcing certain tasks, and leaning on her community for support. She also underscores the importance of listening to your audience and adapting your content strategy based on their feedback.

Things To Think About As A New Content Creator

Treat Content Creation as a Business: Adopt a professional mindset, create a strategic plan, and execute it with intention.
Be Authentic: Share your personal stories, be vulnerable, and connect with your audience on a deeper level.
Diversify Your Platforms: Leverage multiple platforms to reach different audience segments and reduce dependency on any single platform.
Practice Sustainability: Avoid burnout by taking breaks, outsourcing tasks, and listening to your audience.
Understand SEO Basics: Learn and implement basic SEO techniques to make your content discoverable and drive traffic.
Focus on Community Building: Engage with your audience, respond to comments, and create a sense of community around your content.
Leverage Hashtags: Use hashtags strategically to get on brands' radars and expand your reach.
Balance Personal and Professional Life: Ensure you maintain a healthy work-life balance to sustain your creativity and productivity.
Stay Flexible and Adaptable: Be open to changes and willing to adapt your strategy based on feedback and evolving trends.
Invest in Quality: Ensure your content is high quality, both in terms of production and the value it provides to your audience.
Be Patient and Persistent: Building a successful content creation career takes time and consistent effort.
Set Clear Goals: Define what success looks like for you and set measurable goals to track your progress.
Monetize Smartly: Explore various income streams like brand deals, affiliate marketing, and digital products.
Network with Other Creators: Collaborate with others in your niche to grow your audience and learn from each other.
Keep Learning: Stay updated with the latest trends and continuously seek to improve your skills and knowledge.

Memorable Quotes

“It did feel kind of surreal that I was leaving a really stable life. But the panic sort of hit me on the other side once I actually quit and I had all of this free time, I had to work fully on my own schedule and manage my own time. That was all very new for me and was very difficult. I started to think, ‘what if everything was a fluke and I made a mistake?’ Um, but that turned out to just be the adjustment period.”

“For blogging and SEO you don't need to go incredibly deep with search. All you have to understand is that in order for a search engine to serve your content to the people looking for it, you need to have the words that the people might be typing into Google or Youtube figured out.”

“People stay stuck in the research phase and they're consuming all the podcasts, watching all the YouTube videos, but never feel ready. If that's you, just go start because you're only going to learn from your mistakes. And you have to start making those mistakes as soon as possible.”

Guest Bio

Kaya Marriott is a Canadian content creator who began her journey as a Natural Hair Blogger in 2016 with the launch of comfygirlwithcurls.com.

She loves blogging and content creation because it allows her to be helpful. Which says a lot about her character.

Over time, her brand has grown to include beauty and lifestyle content, which she shares across multiple platforms. As her community sought content creation advice, Kaya started providing tips and resources to help others navigate the process.

Despite being considered a "nanoinfluencer," Kaya's journey has seen her partner with global brands, speak with Google at Vidcon Abu Dhabi, and become a founding member of Pinterest Canada’s 2021 Creator Class. She aims to show others that you don’t need a massive following to make a career out of content creation.

Follow Kaya

Website - CreatingWithKaya
Instagram - @creatingwithkaya
YouTube - @CreatingwithKaya

Embrace Your Unique Journey: Cody Wanner on ADHD, Authenticity, and Creative Success

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Cody Wanner) — Thu, 4 Jul 2024 19:06:53 +0000

In this insightful Cody Wanner Podcast, he shares his personal and professional experiences, emphasizing the importance of embracing imperfections.

He discusses how the pressure to be perfect can stifle creativity and hinder progress. By allowing oneself to be imperfect and even laugh at mistakes, Cody believes individuals can unlock greater creative potential and find more joy in their work. This lesson is especially pertinent in today's highly polished social media landscape, where perfection often seems to be an unrealistic goal.

Don’t Give Up

Cody's journey underscores the significance of persistence.

He recounts how his initial videos were far from perfect, yet he continued to create, learn, and improve. Cody made over a hundred videos before he felt confident in the goal. This perseverance is a crucial takeaway for anyone aspiring to succeed in content creation or any other field.

The key is to keep producing and iterating, understanding that each attempt is a step towards improvement. Cody's story is a testament to the power of showing up consistently, despite the inevitable imperfections and setbacks.

Be Yourself

Staying true to your values in life overall is something Cody does really well. This theme of authenticity is clear across all of his content and Cody's overall story.

Developing a genuine presence on camera was a process that took him a long time to feel comfortable with. But now it’s definitely, definitely a strong suit. He explains that this authenticity resonates with audiences and builds a deeper connection. Cody's experience highlights that finding one's true voice is a journey that requires time, patience, and a lot of practice.

It’s about being real and relatable, rather than striving for saying some sort of script. This might be the biggest creator misconception. It doesn’t matter how many people consume your work. It doesn’t matter how polished it is. What matters most is how well you connect with the audience.

No Excuses

Cody also opens up about his ADHD diagnosis and how it has influenced his life and work.

By embracing ADHD, figuring out more of what it means in his specific case and coming up with ways to channel it into a positive, Cody better understands how to leverage his unique strengths. Working within his constraints, with his capabilities can actually keep him in his zone of genius.

This acceptance has allowed him to create in a way that feels natural and fulfilling. His story is a powerful reminder that understanding and working with one's inherent traits, rather than against them, can lead to greater productivity and satisfaction.

Building Community Is An Infinite Game

Lastly, the conversation touches on the importance of community and support.

Being a creator can be super lonely. It can also feel like pushing a massive boulder up a hill. The goal is to eventually hit a tipping point so it rolls down with momentum. But on the way up it can be a grind. Leaning into your community (even if it’s your first two subscribers) can help build momentum quicker and the trust can grow forever.

Cody also talks about the value of having mentors and a supportive network, which can provide guidance, encouragement, and opportunities for growth.

Building and nurturing your relationships with mentors, collaborators, audience and customers can be a game-changer in your creative and professional journey. Cody’s insights remind us that we are not alone in our struggles and aspirations, and seeking out a supportive community can make all the difference.

Practical Tips for Aspiring Creators

Embrace Imperfection: Cody highlights the importance of not taking life too seriously and allowing oneself to be imperfect. This mindset leads to greater creativity and satisfaction in one's work.
Persistence Pays Off: Success on platforms like YouTube often comes down to persistence. Cody emphasizes the need to keep creating and iterating, even when initial efforts seem subpar.
Authenticity on Camera: Developing a genuine presence on camera takes time and practice. Cody shares his journey of making over 100 videos before feeling truly authentic.
Understanding ADHD: Cody discusses his diagnosis of ADHD and how it has shaped his approach to work and creativity. Embracing his ADHD has allowed him to work with his unique strengths.
Leveraging Your Strengths: Identifying and focusing on your strengths, rather than conforming to traditional expectations, can lead to greater personal and professional fulfillment.
Community and Support: Building a supportive network and finding mentors can significantly impact your creative journey. Cody shares how these relationships have helped him thrive.

Memorable Quotes

“I love the idea of just making people smile.”

“When I’m told to do something, there is a part of me, sometimes a big part of me, sometimes a little part of me, that wants to do the exact opposite.”
“At the end of the day, getting stuff out there is more important than any of the other stuff.”
“I made 114 videos on my vlog channel until I started to feel like it was clicking.”

Guest Bio

Cody Wanner is dedicated to encouraging the doers and spreading the #NoSmallCreator mindset.

He began his journey with a daily vlog, starting with just 111 subscribers and vlogging every day for a full year. Cody's channel is all about offering encouragement and motivation to fellow creators. With a BA in Communication (Concentration in Film) he co-founded Cap Collective Video Production and has since become a prominent voice in the creator community.

As the founder of #NoSmallCreator and a YouTube Creator on the rise, Cody has shared his insights at VidSummit, Power of Video, and Social Media Marketing World.

Subscribe to his channel and follow him on socials for tips and motivation.

Follow Cody

Website - CodyWanner.com
X - @codywanner
Instagram - @codywanner
YouTube - Youtube@RCodyWanner

Believe In Your Ability To Figure Things Out

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 11:45:16 +0000

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You Must Believe This To Learn Anything Valuable

Aright, welcome back to the podcast, everyone!
Remember, sign up to the Just Keep Learning newsletter if you haven’t already. It’s kind of the central hub now for us to share all the things we’re up to.

Today, we’re diving into a topic that is crucial for anyone looking to achieve their big dreams: the belief in your ability to “figure things out.”

Maybe you wanna create a podcast, write a book, or build a business. Go figure, three things I’m always working on.

But perhaps you want to make some of your own clothing, start public speaking more, or meet the love of your life.

Whatever the heck it is, it all requires learning.
And learning in the right sequence.

What do I mean by sequence?
You don’t want to learn too early, you don’t want to learn too late (obviously).
You want to learn “just in time”. (Haha, that’s a nickname my Grandpa used to call me. “Just-In-Time”)

Anyhow, the ability to learn like this is built on an important belief.

The mindset that “Everything is figure-outable”.

Do you believe in your ability to “figure things out”?

If you don’t, then you simply can not learn ahead of time. You can't learn in the moment for your future. And certainly, you won’t take action toward that ideal future either.

Most learning should be proactive, but this proactive type of deep learning is tied to self-esteem. When your self esteem is low, you will have trouble creating a vision.
You might be able to daydream mindlessly, but you won’t be able to choose the actual aim and keep that moon in the window, so that you land amongst the stars.

Maybe deep down, you know you want to achieve something greater.

But you aren’t able to clearly see your vision.

Even if you have the vision, you don’t know what missions, or action steps to take, because the ability to learn skills and strategy require that you believe in yourself.

I’m Figuring Out How To Draw For My Book

I’ll give you a perfect personal example.

Drawing was something I loved to do as a kid. And even as an adult, for like the last twenty years, I’ve always wanted to get better at drawing.

But unless it was purely for enjoyment, or hobby, then sinking time into that skill would have been a huge waste of time.
Same goes for guitar, dance, and basket-weaving.

But, fast forward to today and I am working on my first fully published book.

I know my core audience appreciates books that have visuals. So I am definitely going to have some doodles in my book.

Now, I could outsource these. I could hire someone to create engaging graphics that summarize my writing.

I’m certainly a big fan of paying for services (figuring out the “who” not “how” of any project so to speak).

But in this case, it would be way less scalable and less convenient. I have to explain which writing ideas to turn visual, and trust that the style will vibe with the book. More important to me, whenever I’m struck with a creative, visual idea, I won’t be able to make it. There would end up being a timeline of deliverables for the visuals. But what if I think of a great one a month later? Finally, I am the creator of the book. I have zero problem with collaboration, or relinquishing some control. In fact, I have an author coach, I’m trying to get someone to work on the cover art together, and of course, I will have editors.

But as far as the visual ideas throughout, I see them a lot more like the writing itself.

I want to be the one completing the writing, the designs, and the overall messages in the book.

Learning To Explain Ideas Visually

So, I knew heading into this first book draft that I wanted to take a course on drawing simple images to explain ideas.

I enrolled in Janis Ozolins' course called “Explain Ideas Visually.” I’m learning how to visualize ideas to turn my writing into simple, powerful graphics while brushing up on my drawing skills.

It’s been something I know I want to add to my list of skills, but if I took the course any earlier, it would have been a waste of time against other priorities in life. But in this season, as I have a clearer picture of what the book will be, as I get my ideas organized, it’s time to learn about explaining ideas visually in a more simple way. If I waited longer, that could have been a problem too.

As I organize the book into chapters and start removing material, I want to have the visuals completed. So this part had to happen now.

NOW, I know you’re in one of three spots.

You might have a solid idea of your vision, the actions you should take, and what learning you need to get there.
But you might also be sitting there thinking, "I have no idea what my big dream goal is," or maybe you know that vision, but you have no idea what to learn to get you there.

In all of these cases, a reminder on how to improve self-esteem can help.

How to improve self-esteem?

The trickiest thing I tell everyone is: FIND YOUR GO-TO PERSON.
There is at least one person who believes in you, who supports you and you need to be able to lean into them when times get tough.

Marie Forleo has a book on this exact topic called “Everything Is Figureoutable” and here are a few things that she says you can do too.

Belief in Yourself:

Forleo emphasizes that the foundation of achieving anything starts with the belief that you can figure things out. This mindset shift is crucial as it transforms challenges and obstacles into opportunities for growth and learning.

Take Action:

She advocates for taking consistent, small steps towards your goals. Action is a key component because it helps overcome fear and inertia, moving you closer to your desired outcomes even when the path isn’t entirely clear.

Reframe Problems as Opportunities:

Forleo encourages readers to reframe their problems. Instead of seeing a problem as a dead end, view it as a puzzle to be solved. This positive outlook can make daunting challenges feel more manageable and less intimidating.

Progress Over Perfection:

Embrace the concept of progress over perfection. Forleo highlights that striving for perfection can be paralyzing, and it’s more important to make progress, learn from mistakes, and continually improve.

Resourcefulness:

She stresses the importance of being resourceful and creative in finding solutions. This means leveraging all available resources, including seeking help from others, using technology, and being innovative in your approach.

Persistence and Resilience:

Persistence and resilience are key themes in the book. Forleo shares stories and techniques on how to stay motivated and resilient in the face of setbacks and failures, reinforcing the idea that persistence pays off.

Train Your Brain:

Forleo talks about the importance of training your brain to be solution-oriented. This involves positive self-talk, visualization, and other mental practices that prepare you to face challenges with a proactive attitude.

Celebrate Small Wins

Forleo emphasizes the importance of recognizing and celebrating small achievements along the way. Acknowledging your progress, no matter how minor it may seem, can boost your confidence and self-esteem. By focusing on these incremental successes, you build a positive self-image and reinforce the belief that you are capable of achieving your larger goals.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Finding Your Freedom By Living On Purpose And Writing In The Creator Economy With Taylin Simmonds

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Taylin Simmonds) — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 04:39:52 +0000

In the Taylin Simmonds podcast episode, we had an engaging and inspiring conversation about the world of creatorship. Taylin talked about solopreneurship, and the pursuit of success in online business. It used to be very difficult for people to become entrepreneurs. But the internet has allowed for all of us to become business owners if we want to.

Creating, buying and selling assets no longer has a barrier to entry. And there is a huge benefit for those who take advantage of the fact that it is accessible to all of us. Taylin understood this from an early age and got to work.

He shares the whole journey and gives a few tips for if you want to do a similar thing.

The Importance of Alignment

Taylin emphasizes the significance of alignment in choosing the right vehicle for success.

There are so many options. Almost unlimited options for making money in life. That it’s really important for it to align with your true values.

His own journey took him from college teacher to successful business owner.
There is a path that is right for you, but you’re the only one that can figure it out.

Clarity and alignment will fuel your motivation and persistence.
So make sure your business aligns with your personal goals and lifestyle.

Overcoming Challenges and Finding Freedom

One of the best moments in the interview was when Taylin discussed what it meant for him to be "set free."

He candidly shared his personal struggles, feeling stuck in a job with limited growth and financial opportunities. Discovering the right vehicle, in his case, the creator business and writing online, transformed his life.

This newfound freedom allowed him to break free from mental and environmental chains, enabling him to achieve financial stability and personal fulfillment.

The Power of Clarity and Faith

Taylin highlighted the importance of clarity in achieving his own success. Again, there are so many options. But there is only one that is best for you!

He shared that understanding your goals and having a clear vision of where you want to go is vital.

This clarity, coupled with faith in the process and in yourself, can drive you forward even when faced with challenges.
He emphasized that faith is the first step, believing that what's possible for others is also possible for you.
And believing in your ability to be able to figure it out.

Practical Tips for Aspiring Creators

For those looking to dive into the creator economy, here is some practical advice:

Pick a High-Income Vehicle: Focus on marketing, sales, or high ticket domains, where you can leverage hard skills to generate income at first.
Define Your Niche: Choose a specific area and identify the transformation you want your audience to achieve. This helps in creating targeted and effective content.
Learn and Adapt: Embrace a growth mindset and continuously learn. Whether through courses, mentors, or self-study, keep refining your skills and knowledge.
Systems Thinking: Understand how different components of your business work together. This holistic approach helps in optimizing your strategies and achieving better results.

Embrace the Right Mindset

Throughout the conversation, Taylin stressed the importance of mindset.

Whether it's dealing with imposter syndrome, staying productive, or coping with stress, having the right mindset can make all the difference.
He shared his own experiences and insights on how to stay focused, organized, and motivated.

Ultimately this Taylin Simmonds podcast was a deep dive into the mind of a successful creator.

His journey, insights, and practical advice offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to succeed in the creator economy.

As Taylin put it, "Culture is just what’s emotionally popular at the moment. Don’t be afraid to go against it if it doesn’t align with you."

How To Start Writing Online

Identify Your Niche and Passion: Choose topics that genuinely interest you and align with an audience's needs to stay motivated and engaged.
Understand Your Audience: Research and engage with your audience to tailor your writing to their interests and problems.
Develop a Consistent Writing Schedule: Set a regular writing schedule to maintain momentum and keep your audience engaged.
Create High-Quality Content: Ensure each piece of writing provides clear value and uses storytelling to make it engaging and relatable.
Promote Your Writing: Use multiple platforms to share your work and build a personal brand to increase visibility and credibility.
Learn and Adapt: Seek feedback regularly, stay updated with industry trends, and be open to experimenting with new formats and styles.

Memorable Quotes

“You have to find alignment in your work and business, or else the tradeoffs aren’t worth it.”

“Creator business, especially writing, is the vehicle that really clicks for me.”
“I think all of this comes down to clarity.”

“Finding the right mentor that will give you actual actionable steps can unlock everything.”

Guest Bio

Taylin Simmonds is a top personal branding voice on LinkedIn and X.

He is a retired college teacher turned consultant who was barely scraping by until Dakota Robertson became his mentor.
With his guidance, he was able to take his own ghostwriting agency to $500K/year.

Now, he leads cohorts on ghostwriting and personal branding. He guides people toward building profitable online businesses.
If you’re looking to thrive as a creator, he is definitely a great person to learn from.

Follow Taylin

Website - TaylinSimmonds.Com
LinkedIn - @taylin-john-simmonds
X - @TaylinSimmonds

Unlocking the Secrets of YouTube Success with Mihir Narula

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Mihir Narula) — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 03:05:47 +0000

Welcome to a deep dive into the captivating world of YouTube success with Mihir Narula.

This Mihir Narula Podcast episode is all about unraveling the intricacies of content creation, marketing strategies, and the art of balancing multiple passions. Whether you're a budding YouTuber or a seasoned creator, Mihir’s insights offer solid guidance on navigating your creator business. Especially with YouTube.

Mihir Narula is incredibly wise when it comes to YouTube excellence and innovative marketing.

He shares his journey from a young, ambitious content creator to a successful entrepreneur. It’s a testament to his dedication and strategic thinking. In this episode, Mihir shares his experiences, challenges, and the wisdom he's gathered along the way.

It was a truly exciting interview. Hope you enjoy! Here’s a bit of what we talked about.

Balancing Multiple Interests

One of the key themes of this episode is the concept of balancing multiple interests without spreading oneself too thin. Mihir emphasizes the importance of focusing on one primary interest at a time, following the philosophy of "working in seasons."

This approach allows for deep dives into specific areas, such as business or YouTube, ensuring that each passion receives the attention it deserves.

Slow Productivity: A Game Changer

Inspired by Cal Newport's concept of slow productivity, we talk about deep work and focus compared to hopping all over the place.
Mihir discusses the significance of maintaining that focus while being productive.

But this can also be really tough for creative minds. Mihir has a great solution for boredom.

He shares his strategy of working in seasons, dedicating quarters of the year to different aspects of his career. This method not only enhances productivity but also prevents burnout, a common issue among creators.

Transitioning Focus: From YouTube to Business

Mihir’s journey has seen a significant shift from being a full-time content creator to diving into the business world.

Initially focused on YouTube for his own channels on gaming, he realized the need to expand his expertise to other areas of social media marketing. His current venture involves helping traditional businesses navigate the online space, prioritizing video content to reach their target audiences effectively.

Advice for Aspiring YouTubers

Like we always do on the Just Keep Learning Podcast, we got into some practical tips for starting your own creator business. For those considering starting a YouTube channel, Mihir offered a ton of guidance.

He stresses the importance of understanding one’s goals and financial aspirations.

Whether aiming for a modest income or leveraging existing skills to create a niche, Mihir encourages aspiring YouTubers to focus on delivering value to their audience. Always keep that key audience member in mind. You will have other people in your audience, but make sure to create with one person in mind.

The Power of Freelancing

One of the biggest challenges we face as creators is making money. It sounds so simple, but it really does hold people back. One of the best ways to prepare yourself for this challenge is to monetize a service. Any service that can solve a problem for someone else can be turned into an offer. That offer can be the first way you make money while your channel grows steadily.

Mihir’s initial foray into freelancing played a crucial role in his own career development.

Starting as a video editor for creators, he quickly realized the potential of offering comprehensive channel management services. His proactive approach, including offering free services to potential clients, helped him secure long-term collaborations and build a solid reputation.

Once you make money and have financial freedom then you can create any type of content you’d like.

Navigating Burnout and Finding Joy in Content Creation

Burnout is a challenge many creators face, and Mihir is no exception.

He shared a heartfelt, candid story about feeling trapped in a niche and the eventual burnout from creating repetitive content. Mihir’s solution involved pivoting his focus and finding joy in helping others succeed, which reinvigorated his passion for content creation for himself.

This Mihir Narula Podcast episode on JKL can be super powerful for anyone looking to succeed on YouTube, or even in the broader content creation, digital marketing space.

Mihir’s journey, marked by strategic shifts and a commitment to just keep learning, offers valuable lessons for all of us. By balancing multiple interests, embracing slow productivity, and prioritizing value creation, Mihir exemplifies the path to sustainable success in the digital age.

7 Secrets To Unlock When Building Your YouTube Channel

Know Your Audience: Understand who your target audience is and what they are interested in. Create content that caters specifically to their needs and preferences.
Consistent Content Schedule: Upload videos consistently. Whether it’s once a week or twice a month, consistency helps build a loyal audience who knows when to expect new content.
Engaging Thumbnails and Titles: Your video thumbnails and titles should be eye-catching and accurately represent the content of your video. They play a crucial role in attracting viewers to click on your videos.
High-Quality Content: Invest in good equipment and editing software to ensure your videos are of high quality. Clear audio, sharp visuals, and good editing make your content more enjoyable and professional.
SEO Optimization: Use relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. This helps your videos appear in search results and reach a wider audience.
Engage with Your Community: Respond to comments, ask for feedback, and build a community around your channel. Engaging with your audience creates a loyal fan base and encourages more interaction.
Collaborate with Other Creators: Collaborations can introduce your channel to new audiences. Partner with creators in your niche to create mutually beneficial content that appeals to both your audiences.

Memorable Quotes

“I found success making FIFA videos. But I got sucked into that niche. I enjoyed it for a while, but after six years of just doing FIFA gaming content I was stuck. When I hit 40,000 subscribers I really started to burnout, because I wanted to try more creative videos, but every time I would do those, I would get fewer views."

"A lot of people get this wrong. They struggle with having a basic idea of where they want to go, how they’ll execute it they don’t even have a basic outline or gameplan.”

“You want to give people as much content as you can, without it being too overwhelming.” 

Guest Bio

Mihir is a YouTube Strategist for Entrepreneurs, Businesses & Brands. He shares content about marketing and social media.

His main goal is to help great brands scale with video, especially on Youtube.

Mihir is a content creator at heart having built his own successful channels.
But his business is the main focus right now. He helps Coaches, Consultants, and Agency Owners who make $20,000 per month.

If you want to build an authentic personal brand on YouTube to attract clients, but don't have the time, systems, team or clarity to do it effectively, Mihir can help.

Follow Mihir

X - @mihir_narula
YouTube - @Mihir_Narula

Number One Learning Strategy According To Tony Robbins

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:11:57 +0000

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What Is Immersion?

Let’s be honest, immersion is a “strategy” that’s been around as long as learning has.

There isn’t a lot of creativity to it.

Yet its potency in accelerating learning and transformation is unmatched. It is the best.

Immersion is the opposite of passive learning.

Becoming obsessed and focused with finding feedback on your abilities as soon, and as much possible.

Diving so deep into the practice that the intensity brings about rapid change.

This is how I felt with football, fitness, writing, parenting and podcasting.

If I did want to learn to crochet, or draw for real, then I would do as much as I could, quickly and get as much feedback as possible.

This is why Tony Robbins workshops are delivered in a very intensive 3, full day schedule.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

We Need Reminders To Keep Going

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 14:17:12 +0000

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As a podcaster I have continued to push forward.

Through many ups and downs. So many challenges.

But I keep going. Like a true professional I put in the practice and I publish.

Rinse and repeat. Over and over again.

‘Til the night closes in.

You Can Only Connect The Dots Looking Back

Anyways, like Steve Jobs infamously said,

“You’ve got to find what you love. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

But you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So we have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in our future.

Trust in something- your gut, destiny, life, or karma. This approach has never let me down. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

So, even though I often feel like giving up on my big dreams, I will never settle.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Dylan Schmidt On Podcasting, Content Creation And Being Multi Passionate

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Dylan Schmidt, Justin Nolan) — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 11:29:49 +0000

Dylan discussed being multi passionate, some of the challenges of being creative and solutions that he has found. We also thought about some more questions and ideas around creativity in general. We talked about overcoming fear to become a content creator.

Dylan shared some lessons about online business, podcasting and choosing your niche, or target avatar. Dylan also shared his framework “CLIPS” for creating great short form content.

You don’t have to overthink learning and posting. We talked about the continuum between being an expert vs being an enthusiast and how we can create from either side, or anywhere in between.

Making Creativity Sustainable

There is a blessing and a curse of having a lot of creative ideas. But you need to take care of yourself first. We discussed this foundation we need as creatives to keep us in check. You have to prioritize and let some things go. And, if you’re multi passionate, it’s definitely important to embrace your identity, incorporate a few aspects, but not give in to too many shiny objects.

Social media and procrastination can be addictive. The only way to achieve work is to find a personal solution to this problem.

You do have an incredible message, and social media use does have a powerful role to play in helping spread messages.

But we have to be mindful about how much.

How can you go from doom scrolling and consuming content to making it instead?

Be mindful and intentional about how you’re spending your time.

Whenever you’re spending time, think through the lens of What do you want to make? What are you making? Why are you making it? Who are you making it for? And what impact will it have?

Mental Health For Creatives

Being a creator can be an ongoing battle to find balance. Figuring out when to push toward your goals and when to give yourself the space to pause, relax and recharge.

It was actually Dylan’s therapist who helped guide to continue with podcasting. We talked about a lot of his career, school journey and how he sets goals with mental health in mind.

Dylan shared the value of mindfulness, and how he got into stuff like meditation and breathwork. We also discussed the value of deep work beyond our online personas. Which ultimately comes down to self awareness.

There are so many options to being a creator. For example, we can build successful businesses, books and achieve big goals completely offline without sharing publicly. We could build exclusively online like livestream, or social posts. Or anywhere in between. And in any order.

There are successful examples everywhere on this continuum. So don’t stress. Do what works for you.

And be patient. The business of creativity is a step by step climb. You build up and up to certain levels of success in the content creation space.

Maybe someday you will have large successful brand deals. But you build up to it. Not to say you can’t start now, but it may not be the amounts, or brands you have in your big dreams. You start out small and continue to build. By the time we see creators, we see them as an “overnight success”. But really that overnight success took five, or ten years to get to.

And of course, Dylan is the Digital Podcaster, so we had to talk about clip creation and podcasting. He shared a few pretty unique tips in case you want to start your own show, or short form content.

How To Make Great Short Form Videos (CLIPS)

One of Dylan’s expertise is creating powerful short form content that stands on its own. He shared that the best videos don’t have much extra information. They can be a complete story all on their own. To make the process of creating short clips more simple he uses an acronym “CLIPS”.  

“CLIPS” stands for 

C: capture key moments 
L: length optimization  
I: improve visual appeal 
P: promote on social media and
S: study performance.

14 Things To Keep In Mind When Podcasting

Less can be better because we get paralyzed by analysis and fear. Get your first idea and get started as soon as possible.
Build your foundation on the right niche for you that you can sustain (for you) long form and long term.
If you want to create the show to teach in a binge-worthy way, by going more and more niche, recognize you might not have long term recurring listeners. But if you create categories that are a bit more broad, it can expand and be more sustainable over time.
On the flipside, you don’t need a super clear niche, but the less specific it is, the longer it might take to grow an audience.
Know your why and goals for creating the show. This will change the format and cadence of your schedule and workflow.
Be authentic by following your curiosity and sharing what you learn. The more interested the host is the more interested the audience will be.
Don’t define the direction, the workflow, or try to make the show perfect in the early days.
Build consistency as soon as possible. See more and more episodes through and get to the 100th episode.
The first year, the first hundred episodes will be most challenging, but then you’ll really understand the direction and workflow. Keep going.
Always be improving your general creativity, because even once you have the technical elements of podcasting, the need to be creative will always be there.
Continue to create, improve and network. Keep growing the show and opportunities to monetize will come to mind. You could definitely monetize early on, but that requires specific skills in terms of business, such as niche selection, outreach, coaching, advertising, or an existing audience.
Everything starts with great content, so just keep learning how to get better and better at creating.
With every decision you make, think through the lens of “are you adding value to your audience?”

Memorable Quotes

“You can do things your way! And if you take a step back a lot of your best ideas will come about naturally which is always the best way.”

“My tattoo means stay focused and spend time on what really matters most to me in life.”

“You can’t fake being interested when it comes to hosting a podcast.” 

“Sure someone else could make the creative thing you thought of, but you have the pull to make it, you had the idea, you need to be the one to make it.”

Guest Bio

Dylan Schmidt specializes in digital content creation.

He builds his own creative content, but also helps other businesses and individuals create their own content too.

Since 2022 his company Content Clips has produced tens of thousands of social media posts, podcasts, and newsletters for New York Times Bestselling authors, TED speakers, Ivy League professors, and 7-figure entrepreneurs. His content has been viewed nearing a billion times.

He is also a creator himself as host of the Top Apple Podcast "Digital Creator".

Dylan's passion lies in assisting those with a message to share the resources they need to produce and profit from their digital content.

That’s why he started a membership site called the Creator Club to bring brand new and experienced writers and podcasters to support each other.

Want to connect with Dylan? You can hit him up at his website: DylanSchmidt.Com

Follow Dylan

LinkedIn - @DylanSchmidtPodcast
Youtube - @DigitalPodcaster
Website - DylanSchmidt.Com

7 Tips For Better Storytelling

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

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How To Tell Better Stories

I hope by now you understand that stories can be short, sweet, but also really powerful in helping you share any message you want.

The best thing about storytelling to me is that it is yet another infinite game. We can get better and better at storytelling forever.

So for today, let’s keep it simple, what are a few things you could do today to improve your storytelling?
I’ll keep these quick.

Keep It Simple - A good story is easy to understand. It should be around the 5th grade level in terms of language. Don’t make it any longer than it needs to be. Remove the fluff, no extra stuff. And don’t rush the pace, or rate of revelation, just let the story breath.
“No And Then” - There’s a funny moment in the movie “Dude Where’s My Car?” where the person working the drive through window keeps saying “and then” and they’re having to say back a bunch of times “there’s no and then”. It’s a great way to remember the main storytelling tip that the creators of South Park Matt Stone and Trey Parker say. Don’t create “and then” moments. Instead make your beats, or events lead to each other. Connect the moments. For example “this happened, so this happened, because this happened, so this happened”. As opposed to “this happened and then this happened and then this happened.”
Hooks And Headlines - You need to grab attention. So, you should spend disproportionate time on the head line and hook. This is the catchy, thesis, value statement of the piece. It creates intrigue and without it no one will listen to your story anyways.
Engage Emotions - Use power words that connect with your audience on an emotional level. This makes it more impactful, memorable and worthwhile.
Show, Don’t Tell - Rather than explaining, use immersive words and phrases that tap into the senses of sight, sounds, smells, and tactile experiences to create a vivid picture in the audience's mind.
Relatable Characters - Develop the archetype of your character in a way that makes them understood, intriguing and connected to the audience. Give them depth by adding unique traits, desires, and conflicts.

Use A Framework
Now these can be a bit abstract, maybe something we can look at in more detail later, so I’ll give a couple examples for now. You can go off the beaten track and get as creative as you want, but at first you should start with a framework for the story. There are many frameworks. You can look them up specific to telling stories for education, memoir, business, or fiction. The simplest is to think in terms of “a beginning, middle and end”. And one of the most popular is “the hero’s journey.

Hero’s Journey
A series of steps the character must take to achieve their goal. The main steps include: call to adventure; crossing the first threshold; leaving behind the known world, venturing into the unknown; tests, trials, and allies; a major enemy or obstacle; and finally, the return home, transformed and changed by their experiences.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Thinking Fast And Slow From Daniel Kahneman

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 11:00:00 +0000

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Are You Transforming?

To change what you believe means you do more than gain knowledge.
As teachers, coaches, parents, or creators, anyone supporting a community with learning, we can use these 3 points as a checklist.

You transform because you:

Apply and test new ideas
Challenge your truths
Unlearn and modify your understanding

Put another way, “knowledge could be power, but not necessarily”

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Justin Freishtat On Life Lessons, Sales And Sports

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Justin Freishtat) — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:11:21 +0000

Justin shares his entire journey of going from athlete to entrepreneur.

He talks about the importance of fighting shiny object syndrome.

How books, podcasts and masterminds changed his trajectory.

Justin shared everything he has learned about being great at sales while being a good person.

He talked about building confidence in the world of business.

And we also touched on some difficult life stuff.

The existential crisis, balancing goals with wellness and his brother’s cancer diagnosis.

Life Lessons From Sport And Counter Balance

Justin shared a lot of wisdom from his success as an athlete that transfers to business and life.

He reminded us that life is never linear.

We’ll have ups, downs, setbacks and jumps forward.

There will be times you need to really commit yourself to a goal, maybe lose some sleep.

At other times you’ll be able to craft a really consistent routine for wellness.

Similar to an athlete in camp training for an event, you’ll need to triple down.

After the event there will be some time to rest and recharge.

The wins, losses and ties will come too.

And similar to sports, our careers and life decisions will evolve.

We need to know when to quit and when to fight through a situation.

Maybe sometimes you need to switch teams, ask for a trade, or completely move on to a new situation.

How To Be Great At Sales

To Sell Is Human: There shouldn’t be any stigma associated with sales. Persuasion and influencing others are skills used in everyday interactions. Leading, teaching, parenting, coaching and business all require great sales.
Master Your Product: Thoroughly understand whatever you're selling. You need to know that it’s the best solution for people. Therefore you must know it on the deepest level possible. This enables you to sell with authenticity and confidence.
Evaluate Your Sales Vehicle: Does your current product or service have the potential to meet your revenue and income goals? If not, consider switching to a higher-value product, or new way to sell.
Don’t Hide From Objections: You shouldn’t need to keep anything secret. In fact knowing what might prevent someone from purchasing and tackling those topics head on, well ahead of time is key to being transparent and trustworthy.
Learn from Top Performers: Identify and learn from the top mentors and salespeople in your field. What do they do differently and what makes them successful?
Practice, Practice, Practice: Even if it means facing rejections, practice as much as possible. Professional preparation will pay off when it matters most.
Ethical Common Sense Psychology: Sales is about psychology in the most practical way. Not a matter of studying manipulative techniques. But understanding how the mind works, why we desire things and why customers would be super excited and grateful to be able to even purchase.
Put Yourself In Customer Shoes: Why would someone really want to buy? If your product, or service is truly valuable, then why wouldn’t they buy?

Memorable Quotes

“I’m learning to have a deeper appreciation for normal days, because those are the simple days, the good days.”

"I want people to take wealth seriously because you’re just one tragedy away from losing everything.”

“After a few months all of the haters will go away and you can keep building a tribe of people like you.”

Guest Bio

Demonstrated mastery in sales, leading sales teams, training, marketing, customer relationship management, and performance management. Proficient in shaping sales strategies and go-to-market approaches for organizations, backed by more than ten years of experience in customer-facing roles as the brand's ambassador. A compelling presenter who thrives in high-pressure situations, celebrated for a track record of responsibility, achievement, and driving revenue.

Justin Freishtat is a hedge fund manager, sales professional and investor.

The first 15 years of his professional life was spent building Heartland Foods which is the #1 Farm-to-Table Food Service on the east coast. The company had generated $87 million in gross revenue when the business was acquired by a private equity firm in early 2022.

Now, Justin is a Managing Partner and President of Sales at Kerns Capital. This hedge fund is growing rapidly with several funds that use multiple strategies including swing trading in equities, joint ventures in aerospace, and 3B+ unicorn companies in their private equity arm.

Kerns Capital is partnered with Forte Capital Group and Innovation X with over $1B+ in assets under management.

As an individual investor, Justin and his partners have also amassed a multifamily real estate portfolio comprised of 1674 units across 5 states.

Justin is also personally invested in multiple funds inside the Kerns Capital ecosystem as he believes you should only partner with managers who have skin in the game.

Follow Justin

Instagram - @justinfreishtat
LinkedIn - @JustinFreishtat

FOLLOW JUSTIN AT JUST KEEP LEARNING
Website - JKLHOME
LinkedIn - @JustinNolan-JustKeepLearning
Twitter / X - @JustinNolan_JKL
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Dave Danna On Weight Loss, Mindset And Content Creation

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Dave Danna) — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Dave tells everything about no longer lying to himself in the mirror.

He talks about breaking his scale and realizing that he weighed well over 400 pounds.

How he set his sights on achieving big dreams and the fact that he is in act 1 of his 3 part hero’s journey.

We chatted about the fact that you’ll never feel “ready” if you’re waiting for your nerves to go away.

You just have to face your fears head on because they’re the only thing standing in your way.

Documenting The Process For Accountability

Dave has an incredible story of his journey on social media.

Dave tried many times to lose weight before, but the main thing that made a difference this time?

Documenting the process on social media.

That was the difference between this weight loss journey and all the others before.

We talked about the mixed reputation social media has and some of the pros and cons.

How to be authentic, how to create in a way true to you and the message you want to share.

Such a wild thing to hear how unexpected it was for him to become a social media influencer.

Tips For Your Own Weight Loss Journey

Don’t over analyze the plan, mostly take action.
Do things that make it more sustainable.
Eat less bad foods and more healthy foods.
Create some elements of accountability. If not social media, how do you keep yourself accountable?
Make sure supportive people know what you’re up to and how to hold you accountable.
Keep it lighthearted and fun as much as possible because it’s going to be serious in many other ways.
The best exercises are ones that you’ll enjoy doing as much as possible.
Choose a gym and times that you are comfortable with.
Do what works for you that you can stick to.

Creating Content In The Gym

Dave shared how he decided to start filming and posting his workouts.

He talks about how scary it was at first. It did not come naturally at all.

It was like a whole year before he started to feel comfortable with using his camera in the gym.

Now that he’s done it a bunch of times he is much better and more comfortable.

Maybe a few people look, but really no one is paying attention to you.

Now he creates multiple pieces of content on his phone over the course of about three minutes during his workouts.

The main thing to keep in mind is being respectful and ethical toward everyone else in the gym.

Don’t do any filming or pictures in the locker room. And don’t get anyone in the backgrounds of your videos.

And remember that most people want to support you, so don’t give energy to the negative reactions, or comments.

Memorable Quotes

“Try things. Whether it's different diets, different exercises, different types of content creation, different platforms, different careers, different things in academia and education, different parts of the world to live in, just try more things”

"Man, now I’m gonna be the fat guy filming himself in planet fitness.”

“I don’t really know what to do except I don’t wanna get on the bad side of Joey Swoll in the gym. Haha.”

Guest Bio

“Life is good, Dave is fat. Aspiring supermodel. 30. Accountant. MBA Candidate.”

Follow Dave

Instagram - @david.e.danna
Twitter X - @DaveEDanna
Youtube - @DaveEDanna

FOLLOW JUSTIN AT JUST KEEP LEARNING
Website - JKLHOME
LinkedIn - @JustinNolan-JustKeepLearning
Twitter / X - @JustinNolan_JKL
Instagram - @JustKeepLearning.Ca
Tiktok - @justkeeplearning.ca
Facebook - Just Keep Learning
Free Group - JKL Goal Setting Community

3 Fun Tricks To Spark Your Creativity

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 04:18:46 +0000

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I know you want to increase confidence in your creativity.

Artist, business leader, teacher, stay at home parent. Whatever.
We'll always say yes to more creativity.

But a lot of times we feel stuck.

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck?

There are a bunch of things you could do to light your creative fire.
I'll share a few today.

But, remember, these are simply exercises.
And much like exercises in the gym, they can help us maintain a healthy body and mind.
(If we do them consistently)

They’re simple, tiny invitations to venture beyond the familiar. And, even though they're small exercises they can a

MASSIVE impact.

Because your ideas and projects have the power to change your life, maybe even change the world.

If you can unleash them…

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

5 Ways You Can Grow And Thrive From Trauma

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

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We may not be able to outright choose our emotions.

Our thoughts and feelings stem from a long history of how we react to different situations.

But what is reassuring is understanding that it IS POSSIBLE for anyone to live with vitality.

If you haven't read “Man’s Search For Meaning” I mean it’s the absolute most incredible book when it comes to this concept.

Aside from personal stories I know from clients, this book was the most impactful and clear for me about the mind's ability to thrive through difficulty.

Here’s a quote from the author Viktor Frankl about his finding happiness amidst the chaos of living in concentration camps:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

I wanna tackle specifics about what you can do to make growth a real possibility and give some idea of where this research comes from, but first I want to point out that the examples I’ve shared so far are about the extreme, massive external traumas, things that happen to us that are unbelievable and near unbearable.

But the important thing is that this applies also to our day to day, to the struggles every one of us face year over year at any given moment as a result of the suffering and adversity that can come from simply being human.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Do You Know Your Mission?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 9 Apr 2024 16:08:41 +0000

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There are so many things I wish I had done differently when starting a creator business.

I have no doubt in my mind that this podcast would be far more successful if I knew then what I know now.

But I’m not mad about it. That’s just life.

And my whole mission is to learn these things so I can pass ‘em on to future clients, or my own kids to give them a head start.

In that regard, I am well on my way

The Most Common Mistake

There are so many things I would do differently. But many of them don’t matter all that much.

But there is one specific thing that does make a big difference.

It’s one of those things that has an outsized exponential impact for the amount of time it takes.

It is an absolute game changer, yet it can be summarized really quickly.

I was reminded of it while listening back to the latest JKL Interview.

(Which you can hear here: JKL Int 57 Joe Casabona)
It’s a great episode, especially if podcasting or the business of being a creator is of interest to you.

I asked Joe the number one mistake he sees creators make and he said hands down, it’s definitely not knowing your “mission.”

Understanding your mission is one of those things that has huge returns. No matter what you want to build.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Joe Casabona Podcasting And Business Success The Right Way

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Just Keep Learning, Joe Casabona) — Mon, 8 Apr 2024 03:32:28 +0000

In this episode we chat with Joe Casabona.

Joe is known specifically as a “podcast coach”, but he has a broad wealth of experience and expertise.

He has helped companies and individuals with brand building, marketing, monetization, workflow automation and web design.

We talked about starting a podcast, building a solopreneur, creator business, and balancing all of this with life and family.

We also discussed the value of learning and understanding your own curse of knowledge that can get in the way of teaching.

Joe shares the change in mindset that he went through once he became a parent.

We also talked about forging a habit that allows our hobbies to be simply for fun, not productivity, success, or outcomes.

And the lifestyle of having flexibility to hang with his family that drives him to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Find Your Balance Of Niche vs Broad As A Creator

You have to find a way to appeal to a broad audience to make your creator life sustainable.

You want to be human. Because people want to network with and buy from people they can relate to.

So that means you should share your stories as a parent, with your pets, or about your favorite sports teams.

Don’t hold back, just be a person first.

But when it comes to the professional elements of your brand, be sure to find your niche.

For things like sales, marketing, building a community around the solutions you provide, you need to niche down.

What problem do you solve? Who do you solve it for? And how do you solve it?

Once you figure this out, then people will understand why they should work with you

Steps To Succeeding As A One Person Creator Business

The first question you need to ask yourself is “how will you support yourself”?

And that’s a tough reality check for many of us.
We need to be real with ourselves.

Literally, how will you support yourself? How will you support your family if you have one?

How much money do you need to live? What is your freedom number so to speak.

Once you know this, then you need to decide what will bring in revenue?

Drawing from personal experience, the entrepreneurial journey often begins early with a profit making service. In the beginning take a very pragmatic approach.

It’s likely going to be a side hustle.

But it can definitely gradually expand through strategic use of social media and networking.

But it’s most important to align your business with your lifestyle goals rather than just chasing money.

You need to establish your balance between work and personal life. Set your non-negotiables such as family time, or fitness.

And devise strategies for revenue, eventually passive income that are in alignment with your values.

Also, understand that it won’t be an overnight thing. This will take a lot of trial and error. But it will be well worth it.

The Biggest Mistake Podcasters Make

The number one thing Joe says gets in the way for clients is not knowing why the show exists, or who it’s for.

When you start a podcast, you need to know what your mission is.

This is the number one thing podcast creators get wrong.

And it’s easy to define. So define it!

“I Create [Podcast Name] to help [Audience] With [Problem Solved] By [Delivery Method]”

The Second Biggest Mistake Podcasters Make

This was an amazing part of the episode.

You need to know how much time you spend on each step of an episode.

The answers will lead to the creating capacity you have and also set goals for making things more efficient.

When it comes to workflow, Joe asks every client the same first question:
“What is the checklist of every single step you take to create an episode?”

If the client doesn’t have a checklist clearly defined, then that’s the starting point.

Make your checklist.

Podcasting Automation And Workflow

Joe is an automation genius.

But a word of caution, he shares that it probably is a toxic trait because he tried to automate absolutely everything.

Either way, we can learn a ton from Joe when he says “if I will need to continue to do something a few times, then I need to find robots to take care of it.”

The best way to figure this out for you, as a podcaster, or a business owner in general, is listing out your workflow.
What is everything you do to run different elements of your work?

O.K. Now that you know all of the things, start setting up the dominoes to knock each other over.

Don’t just fly randomly by the seat of your pants.

What can you automate?

This might look different for everyone. The details will change and evolve. But a couple things are universal.

Have a calendar set up. Have an episode tracker that defines each stage the episode is as it moves along from an idea to published.

What can you outsource?

You won’t be able to outsource maybe even anything at first. But, you should have goalposts to work towards.

Your workflow checklist will get more efficient over time. This will include hiring to buy back some of your time.

If your goal is to work more and more in your zone of genius, aka being the creator, the podcaster, then it all starts with hiring for the first thing.

Maybe it’s someone to edit. For most people that’s where we can buy

5 Strategies To Make Money With A Podcast

Joe was super generous in the way that he dove into the framework that he teaches clients.

He explained each piece of his 5 part framework to make money on your show.

He calls it the SMASH Framework.

Sponsorship: The most common way people think of to monetize their podcast because it’s the most visible. You get a company to give you money in order to advertise on your show.
Membership: Another commonly known way to monetize. Instead of asking potential sponsors, you ask your listeners to directly support the show, usually in exchange for some members-only benefits.
Affiliate Links: This is the lowest barrier to entry, but may take time to get a decent income. You sign up for affiliate programs of products you commonly recommend, and you get a cut of each sale from people who click your link.
Selling (Products or Services): I feel is the least-used way to monetize a podcast. You, using the podcast to prove your expertise, sell directly to your audience.
Helping (Coaching, Consulting, Courses): Similar to Selling, you use you podcast to land consulting clients, coaching clients, or sell your online courses. This could be a little easier than selling since you can have a podcast that does exactly what your “helping” service does.

Memorable Quotes

"The only person who will remember that you worked late is your children, because you weren’t there.”

“The biggest mistake new podcasters make is not knowing their mission. Who do you create for, and what problem does your show help them solve?”

"You need to be selective about who you work with. And then once you have expectations managed, you need the right systems in place.”

“Take all business advice with a grain of salt.”

Guest Bio

Joe Casabona humbly brags on his website that he will help you win back 12+ hours per week.
He does this with podcast automation and workflow coaching.

Joe helps busy solopreneurs take back their time by streamlining their process.

His strategies come from many years of experience as a teacher, web developer and podcaster.
He’s also a podcaster himself, a husband, dad, author and baseball fan.

Follow Joe

Website - Casabona.Org
LinkedIn - @Jcasabona
Twitter X - @jcasabona

Virgil Brewster Insights on Entrepreneurship, Success And Personal Growth

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Virgil Brewster, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 18:31:08 +0000

Virgil shares the inception story of his business. It’s a testament to the power of partnership and importance of mentorship.

Starting with a simple yet powerful interaction with a young entrepreneur, Virgil's journey is a prime example of how a single moment can alter the course of your life.

Despite the success, he emphasizes the hurdles. And shares about the mindset shifts required, as well as invaluable lessons from mentors.

Mentorship To Navigate The Course Creation Industry

Virgil shares his remarkable transition from business ideas and aspirations to actualization.

He managed to build a wildly successful business in the competitive space of course creation.
From a pivotal conversation that reshaped his outlook to building a $10 million business, he shows us the power of determination.

This all started when he decided to set his ego aside and learn from people who have already achieved the things he wanted.

Virgil emphasizes this transformative role of mentorship in both his life and business.
He recounts how guidance from others really propelled his business.
Highlighting the influence of Russell Brunson

Crafting a Legacy Within And Beyond Business

Virgil's narrative challenges the romanticized version of being a “business guru”.

But, as much as his philosophies are awesome, we also talked about the practical aspects of building a business.

We talked about vision, values, how to copy-write, storytelling, and the ethics of marketing.

Virgil shared his pretty awesome take on the balance between personal growth and professional development.

He reminds us of the deeper satisfaction derived from purposeful entrepreneurship.

He advocates for a business model that emphasizes well-being alongside wealth.

We should focus more on mental health, personal fulfillment, genuine connection, and alignment.

Embedded in this episode are incredible tips to help you focus on your foundation first.

To be “successful” while also achieving wellness.

14 Strategies To Balance Success With Well-being

Prioritize health as the true wealth
Embrace continuous learning as a lifestyle
Practice gratitude for both trials and triumphs
Value genuine relationships over achievements
Embrace your real identity and stay true to yourself
Stay grounded in remembering your roots and your why
Focus on your dream, but remain flexible in your approach
Celebrate all small wins by acknowledging every step forward
Cultivate resilience and the strength to bounce back from adversity
Learn from failures, setbacks and challenges as opportunities for growth
Seek counterbalance by creating harmony between your work and personal life
Embrace change while expecting the unexpected and be open to evolving your actions
Always give back, with generosity from day one and never stop making a positive impact on others

Memorable Quotes

"I like to approach a niche as fluid. Everything changes. Markets change. People change. You change. When you look in the mirror 10 years ago, you look totally different from now. Externally and internally you change. What you thought was cool 10 years ago may seem totally absurd to you now. So pivot and change direction.”

“People buy Fiat Pandas, but people also buy Ferraris. So, people buy both. Because there is a market for both. It depends on which crowd you position it for.”

"Relationships matter. Not relationships from a business perspective, that goes without saying. You need relationships to grow your business. But the people around you in your journey, through the ups and downs, don't forget, or neglect them, don’t take them for granted, because they are the ones who are with you from the beginning and will be there no matter your glory, or failures.”

Guest Bio

Virgil was a high school dropout, who realized he would not work well with a boss. His only option was to become an entrepreneur.

He failed in many business projects. Until he discovered the potential of courses. In just a few years, he’s now built a $10M business.

And he’s been coaching others to do the same. The main strategy is to build and sell online courses.

Virgil Brewster is an entrepreneur who transcends the conventional definitions of success. He brings a fresh perspective to the world of digital entrepreneurship. With a journey marked by significant

personal and business achievements, he is a great example of fulfilling your life's mission. His dedication to empowering others makes him a pivotal figure in the entrepreneurial, social media

community.

FOLLOW VIRGIL BREWSTER
Website - VirgilBrewster.Com
Twitter X - @thevirgilbrew

Why Is Goal Setting Useless?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 04:39:46 +0000

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Why Does Goal Setting Suck?

I won’t get into all the troubles with education.

But I will mention one.

The fact we still (well some people still) drill the idea of “goal setting”.

I’m partly to blame. I often use the keywords “goals, or goal setting”.

And maybe I should stop.

But I feel it’s my duty to change what that means.

I want more content about dreaming and letting go.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Less Stress, More Focus: How To Find Your Purpose

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 01:46:43 +0000

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Probably the most common question people ask me. (I love your questions, so keep 'em coming!)

"How do I pick my niche?" or "I have so many dreams, which one should I work on?"

Once you remove your dream blockers, you're gonna have a ton of ideas.

And those ideas can become really overwhelming.

So "picking" becomes that much more important.

But I put "picking" in quotations because you can do them all (eventually).

This was really freeing for me.

A friend of mine, Jaime Masters who I really look up to reminded me. You can do all the things. But the fastest, less stressful way to do them all is in sequence.

One at a time.

So, the question becomes what is your "One Thing" for now?

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

Therapy, Life Coaching And Why I Do Both

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 03:53:24 +0000

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I personally recently started therapy again, and it's been incredible. I feel like I could write a book about my experience in therapy alone, or start an entire podcast. But one specific moment sticks out that I wanted to talk about today. And it's actually really connected to my life as a creator, podcaster, entrepreneur, and I'm, I'm sure that a lot of you will be able to relate.

And it's a conversation that I had about therapy itself and how therapy compares to coaching, teaching, parenting, really helping somebody else. learn by guiding them through a process. And my therapist specifically has been helping me because I have so much experience already with psychology. I've been on the receiving end of a lot of therapy.

I've worked with a lot of other therapists. I've read a ton of books on the concept. And because of my experience, it was decided that we would actually look at The underlying mechanics, the foundation to the therapy itself, as opposed to just sitting on the couch, experiencing the therapy. And so, we've talked a lot about the actual philosophy.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
Pinterest - JustTries
Facebook - Just Tries
LinkedIn - Justin

How To Steal Like An Artist Without Being A Thief

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 14:40:15 +0000

If you copy artists you look up to enough you will shift from imitation to inspiration.

From copying to emulating. From emulating to making your own stuff

Then, and only then, you will start creating in your own voice.

How I would do this is by creating a quick steal list. Victim list is a bit harsh, especially because any great creator would be honored and thrilled for you to steal from them. But I think you get the idea. How I would do this is to make a list of six creators you look up to.

1. Find two people creating content in the medium you have chosen.
2. Two people creating on the platform you have chosen
3. And two people who share similar topics, or ideas you have chosen.

Steal some of their style, creative decisions and thought process as you start shipping your own work.

Austin Kleon covers this concept beautifully in his book titled “Steal Like An Artist”.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
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LinkedIn - Justin

Melvin Varghese On Unlocking Creator Business Success While Maintaining Mental Health

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Melvin Varghese, Mel) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 15:44:01 +0000

In this episode we chat with Mel, who seems to have the world at his fingertips. He’s a successful father, entrepreneur, content creator, and psychologist.

Mel’s journey is a beautiful fusion of self-discovery, resilience, and a commitment to staying true to oneself.

He is one of those people who has it all figured out, but is willing to share all of the ups and downs. We see the success with building a business, podcasting, and social media. But it was a grind early on and took a ton of self reflection and self care to get there.

As a psychologist he has a lot to share about the battle between mental health and illness that entrepreneurs face. And he gives us a bunch of great ideas for succeeding in business, but maintaining your mindset along the way.

Future Proofing Education

Mel reminisces about his younger days, brimming with exploration and creativity.

Growing up outdoors, young Mel’s world was an endless canvas of possibilities. Today, when he writes online, or produces a podcast or video, it's his way of saluting that imaginative child within, or as he puts it in the episode, “The Kid Mel”.

We talked about lifelong learning and how so much of it is about remembering who we were, understanding who we are, and driving towards who we aspire to be.

Building His Podcast

Mel’s podcast is a big success and a great north start for any of us podcasters out here working to scale a show.

The journey was anything but smooth. While he's a natural storyteller, it took him six months to muster the courage to record his first episode. Even then, he recorded it seven times. His story underscores an essential truth about success; the tip of the iceberg that we see rarely reveals the entirety of one's journey.

In his case, grappling with anxiety, depression, and the procrastination that comes with those things were part and parcel of the journey.

Scaling Your Dream Business

From bustling nine-to-fives to the freedom to design his schedule, Mel’s business evolution is a masterclass in growth.

An intriguing aspect of his journey was overcoming money blockers, battling the ingrained belief that earning money might be synonymous with greed.

Initially charging minimal amounts, Mel gradually recognized and embraced his worth.

Today, his course for therapists, which teaches them podcasting, is nearing an impressive $400,000. Yet, Mel is quick to highlight that this wasn't an overnight achievement. It was a meticulous, health-conscious process of trial and error to get to this point.

The Reality of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is often romanticized, but Mel paints a more realistic picture.

We talked about his hunch that perhaps there is a connection between childhood trauma and the hunger to excel as an entrepreneur.

And while the appeal of detaching income from hours is real, Mel reminds us of the significance of traditional nine-to-five roles.

His transition to entrepreneurship spanned over six years and took a lot of slow growth both personally and professionally.

Mel gives us an amazing understanding of what the steps were, at least in his case, to build a creator business while maintaining his health.

Armed with these tips, creators like you and I can navigate the often overwhelming world of entrepreneurship.

14 Tips for Balancing Creator Business Success With Well-being

Hobby or Profession? It's entirely okay for content creation to be just a hobby.
Inspiration, Not Imitation: Get inspired by others, but don’t feel pressured to mirror someone else's life.
Embrace Your Reality: Understand and respect your current life circumstances. Work within your present commitments and needs.
Reverse Engineer Your Goals: Visualize the life and business style you want in the future, and work backward to achieve it.
From Ideal Schedule to Reality: Draft both an ideal and a current schedule. Whether on paper, tabs, or calendars, work consistently to make your ideal schedule your everyday reality.
Find the Right Mentors: Seek out mentors who embody the approach and achievements you aspire to.
Prioritize Personal Commitments: Start your scheduling with non-negotiables: family, friends, and personal wellness.
Then, Schedule Business Tasks: Once personal commitments are in place, add your entrepreneurial priorities to your calendar.
Deep Work Blocks: Reserve the earlier parts of your day, around 4 hours, for intensive, focused work.
Routine Breaks: Integrate breaks into your day. This could be naps, walks, workouts, or meals. Turn them into regular routines.
Optimize Nutrition: Pay attention to your diet and eating schedule, continuously refining for optimal health.
Never Stop Learning: Dedicate daily time for continuous, sacred learning.
Smart Monetization: Start with a productized service or consulting based on your unique strengths and audience needs. Once you've gathered feedback and have a growing audience, pivot to more scalable ventures like courses, products, or masterminds. This approach ensures income isn’t always directly tied to time spent.
Don’t Grow Too Fast: Maintain a growth pace that you can own while not compromising your own health. A reasonable rule is to grow no faster than 10-25% year over year.

Memorable Quotes

“I find the combination of exercise and a power nap keeps my anxiety at bay.”

“I say all of this, and I recognize it’s a very neurotypical way of planning. I am a highly sensitive person, but

“My life as a creator is all about honouring the kid Mel.”

“It took me 40 years to realize this, but I don’t really need a lot of friends. I would rather have a few really deep relationships.”

Guest Bio

First, Melvin Varghese is a girl dad and family man.

Second, he is an experienced psychologist, seasoned marketing and social media expert. He has a keen sense of what works in terms of audience growth, and business.

Rather than branding himself as a private practice coach, he's on a mission to give back to his profession, driven by core values of truth, sincerity, and kindness. Mel was born in India and transitioned to the U.S. after 1st grade. His journey is one of courage, adaptation, and growth.

He hosts a popular podcast and blog that reaches a worldwide audience every day. Melvin's transition from a successful clinical career to a thriving 6-figure creator business showcases his versatility. Currently his main business pillar is a mastermind that aids therapists in pivoting from clinical roles to course income.

FOLLOW Mel

Website - Sellingthecouch.Com
LinkedIn - @melvinvarghesephd
Youtube - @MelvinVarghesePhD

FOLLOW JUSTIN (JustTries)
Website - JustTriesHOME
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
Pinterest - JustTries
Facebook - Just Tries

CONNECT WITH JUST KEEP LEARNING
Website - JKLHOME
Instagram - @JustKeepLearning.Ca
Tiktok - @justkeeplearning.ca
Facebook - Just Keep Learning
Free Group - JKL Goal Setting Community

Nishantha On Modern Education, AI, And Creative Careers

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Nishantha) — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 17:44:57 +0000

Nishantha has ADHD and Dyslexia. He’s figured out how to make the most of my cognitive advantages while minimizing the challenges of dyslexic processing.

We talked about the weapons of mass instruction that make it challenging for many kids to succeed.

But we also talked about a lot of the areas that we are hopeful for schools and work to become more and more creative.

Future Proofing Education

We talked about what we think school will look like in the future?

Naturally there will be a transition away from school and work that is based on the needs and desires of the Industrial Revolution.

A lot of this Impact will come from the changes AI will make to education.

What’s awesome is teachers will be afforded to be more creative if we build schools with more common sense.

As we allow AI to help take away some of the repetitive, cognitive labor, teachers will become more and more like artists.

Once we can automate the learning of basic skills, like math, writing, history and geography, the only left is to teach with a very creative approach.

We also discussed whether we think kids will be going to post secondary school in 10, 15 years?

Creator Economy Careers

We talked about the need to scale the creator economy.

Society can get to a place where everyone works because they want to, in an area they are highly interested in. Almost like everyone could be retired in terms of comfortably meeting their basic needs.

We’re already headed in this direction.

The economy is building toward a bunch of small businesses. Entrepreneurship, and the one person business model will continue to take over to the point where we have a bunch of individual monopolies.

Memorable Quotes

“All human beings are teachers. That’s what we are.”

“Most work places and schools are created by neurotypical people for neurotypical people. At best we make accommodations and adjustments from these typical workflows. But what if we designed learning and working from a less typical lens?

“A.I. is both anxiety provoking and exciting.”

“Right now grades are celebrated, but in the future it will be more about the social emotional skills. How well can you interface with machines and human beings?”

Guest Bio

Nishantha is a family man first.

But he’s also an incredible podcaster, filmmaker and artist.

He’s also a public school teacher in Southern California.

One of his biggest passions is working with dyslexic teens and adults to help them turn dyslexia from a liability to one their biggest cognitive assets.

He created an online school called the How To Dyslexia Academy. Build the YouTube channel “How To Dyslexia” and created a private social network, the Dyslexia Community .

FOLLOW Nishantha

Website - Howtodyslexia.com
Youtube - @NishanthaU

Two Questions To Have Clarity And Get Started As A Content Creator

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 5 Oct 2023 17:54:25 +0000

the fact that creation leads to success, and the fact that people want to create something never surprises me.

What does surprise me is how many people never take action.

I’m sure there are a ton of limiting beliefs and productivity challenges that makes people quite. We can discuss that stuff on other episodes, but for now I want to talk about the first thing that keeps us from starting.

When we first get into content creation we struggle with two questions:

Clarity of the medium (how to create it?)
Niche, or topic (what to create about?)

You might have an answer to one of these questions, or both, or neither.

And it can change. Especially when we are multi-passionate 🤯

But let's find some hints to get you started...

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
Pinterest - JustTries
Facebook - Just Tries
LinkedIn - Justin

Stef Pinsley On Burnout, ADHD, Personal Branding and Pivoting To Live Your Best Life

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Stef Pinsley) — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 23:15:17 +0000

This is a transformative conversation focusing on achieving clarity, understanding oneself, and navigating personal challenges. A great listen for those seeking to overcome challenges and redefine their personal and professional paths.

Stef shares all of the ways that ADHD impacts her life in a negative way. But we also talk about some of the ways to cope with attention deficit.

She tells the story of realizing she was burned out from corporate work at Google. How she knew the symptoms. What other people can look for. And what we can do to prevent burnout.

This was an incredible conversation when it comes to helping people get unstuck and clarity in their life.

Stef is an incredible storyteller, marketer and branding expert. But one of her greatest strengths is helping people with mindset and clarity.

So we also talked about feeling stuck, gaining career clarity and developing your personal brand as a priority.

Recovering From Burnout

We talked about Stef’s journey with burnout. She shares her personal experience with recognizing the signs and symptoms..

She shared how valuable it can be to have early warning signs. One of the tipping points for her was coming to the realization that no amount of mental health days could help.

During this time she was developing physical manifestations like stomach pains, headaches, and insomnia. Being misaligned with her work had an emotional toll.

Another sign was increasing difficulty with handling adversity and constantly digging for reasons to be more grateful.

Transitioning from a corporate job that didn't align with her core values of freedom, autonomy, independence, creativity, and impact changed her life.

And now she helps a lot of others do the same.

Content Creation & Social Media Strategy

There is a lot of bad, or confusing advice when it comes to social media and brand building.

Stef gives concrete, practical and In-depth advice for budding content creators. She reminds us that quantity of posts should exist and over time this will lead to quality.

We should see social media as an incredible, low barrier to entry, safe way to test ideas as we grow our audience. We can really test ideas as we grow our audience.

Steph has a refreshing approach to the debate about niche. She believes we should be humans first. Create content that connects with people. And then, over time shift about 10-20% of our content to serve more specific business audiences.

How To Thrive With ADHD

Stef is incredibly helpful and generous in sharing all of the ways that she manages her own ADHD. These lessons can actually be applied to improving workflow for any of us.

The key thing to remember is that this is always an individual, forever journey. While we can steal tips from each other it will come down to figuring out how you operate best, based on your individual needs.

Here are things you can try if you are struggling with ADHD. When combined, these strategies provide a comprehensive approach for a creative entrepreneur with ADHD to not only manage their symptoms but to thrive in their endeavors.

15 Reminders For "Live" Business Creators

Harness Hyperfocus: Use the ability to deep-dive into tasks you're passionate about, allowing yourself to be completely immersed in the flow state.
Capture Creative Moments: Make an ideation journal with a notebook or digital app handy for spontaneous, fleeting ideas typical of the ADHD creative mind.
Dedicated Workspaces: Assign specific areas in your workspace for various tasks to mentally prepare yourself for each task.
Visual Cues & Reminders: Use sticky notes, vision boards, or whiteboards to keep tasks organized and at the forefront.
Time Blocking: Allocate specific blocks of time for dedicated tasks or activities, which can aid in minimizing distractions.
Brain Dumping: Set aside moments in your day to jot down all your thoughts, ideas, and tasks to clear your mind and organize later.
Priority Listing: Identify what needs immediate attention, allowing you to address tasks in a sequence that maximizes productivity.
The One Thing: Focus on accomplishing the most critical task before moving on to others.
Routines: Establish daily routines to add structure, making it easier to navigate the day.
Reducing Stress of Big Tasks: Break large activities into smaller, more manageable chunks, allowing them to be tackled systematically.
Collaborative Projects: Engage in teamwork to instill a sense of accountability.
Hire an Assistant or Coach: Consider assistance for administrative tasks or an ADHD coach for personalized strategies.
Body Doubling: Work alongside someone, even if they're working on a different task, to reduce feelings of isolation and maintain focus.
Mindful Breaks: Incorporate short mindfulness sessions or activities to reset and recharge.
Reflect on Your Patterns: Regularly analyze your productivity patterns to understand and adapt to your most and least effective periods.
Improve Wellness Factors: Ensure adequate and quality sleep, exercise and nutrition to boost concentration and productivity.

Memorable Quotes

“It’s not that you have something wrong with you. ADHD is about having a medical issue that you need support with.”

“When I consume other people’s content, it messes with my head and makes me feel like I’m not doing enough, so I try not to do that too much.”

“You can use Chat GPT for acquiring knowledge, as a friend, mentor, business partner, a marketing consultant, creating content, as a productivity coach, literally anything and everything. But, yeah I am obsessed.”

“A lot of people are suffering from burnout and they don’t even realize it.”

Guest Bio

Stef Pinsley, formerly a marketer at Google, transitioned to entrepreneurship in 2021 after facing burnout in her corporate role.

During a leave of absence in 2020, she built a significant following of over 70,000 on platforms like TikTok and Instagram by sharing insights on marketing, branding, and mindset.

Capitalizing on this growth, Stef established herself as an industry leader, launching her coaching business and leaving Google.

She has since empowered thousands with her signature frameworks on personal branding, cementing her belief that a strong personal brand is pivotal for professional growth.

FOLLOW Stef
Instagram - @Stef.Pinsley
LinkedIn - Stefanie Pinsley
Website - Stefpinsley.Com

Do We Need The 10,000 Hour Rule? How To Learn Fast!

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Just Keep Learning) — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 16:02:59 +0000

In today’s solo episode I’ll talk about learning skills fast.

How can we learn a skill in the most efficient way possible?

Steps To Learn A Skill

Now what if we wanted to elaborate on that framework to give you a step by step guide to learn something efficiently?
In later episodes I can quote and share some specific learning frameworks from creators like Carol Dweck and Tim Ferris, but today I’ll mention a checklist of things we should have to learn anything fast.

Define your target performance level. Decide what you want? Clearly define what it is you want to aim to do?
Deconstruct the skill into its component parts. Break it down into manageable chunks to learn.
Prioritize the most important sub-skills for you first. Apply Pareto’s Principle to your learning efforts.
Don’t procrastinate. Try the actual skill in its truest possible form right away so you have the ability to anchor your learning.
Research. Learn from teachers in books, courses, coaches and content how to learn the sub skills.
Dedicate time in your schedule to focused, frictionless practice.
Seek feedback as soon as possible from people who understand what it’s like to learn the skill.
Commit to a minimum of forty dedicated hours in trying the skill.
Create an environment of accountability by adding rewards, and or consequences for your effort.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
Pinterest - JustTries
Facebook - Just Tries
LinkedIn - Justin

Sri On Channeling Trauma Into Entrepreneurship & Going Live

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:43:37 +0000

Trigger Warning. This is an episode that gives you those Holy Sh*t moments. If it is too difficult for you to hear talk of trauma, then it may be too difficult for you to listen.

While it is important to learn from people who have survived difficult times, it can also be too much for some people to hear.

But if you can listen this episode is extremely valuable.

Working With Trauma

Sri found her brother murdered at 14. She was only 11 years old.

She shares that she faced many challenges afterward that she believes were partly because she never dealt with that trauma. Sri has a powerful voice from being a young mother and a survivor of sexual abuse.

She reminds us through her own story that once we start to work on ourselves, it will actually benefit those around us. How if we go deep and lean into our pain, then we don’t have to hold onto it anymore.

Finding Your Business Path

Sri’s daughter lost her father and there was no legacy left behind. This opened her eyes to the fact that we can be here one moment and gone the next.

When this happens, what are we leaving behind for our kids?

Sri realized she wanted to build a legacy for the next generation. This is one of the reasons she became an entrepreneur. She also wanted to help other people build businesses as a way of owning their true self.

And one of the first steps she takes to do this is telling people to audit their influences. Who are you hanging around with? How are you spending your time? What content do you consume? What podcasts, books, vlogs and blogs are you learning from?

Sri also told us all about the decision to create her main pillar, or hub content as live shows.

15 Reminders For "Live" Business Creators

Audit your influences. Surround yourself with other creators.
Think long term. Remember it takes a while to grow an audience.
Collaboration is underrated. Creating a network effect is key to success.
Continuously get closer and closer to outsourcing things outside of your zone of genius.
Focus on your one thing. Improving going live and growing the business.
Confidence comes and goes. Remember you’ll try to talk yourself out of it. Keep going.
If you can, work for someone else first to see if it’s what you want to do.
Ask non biased, market based questions. Why would someone want to be on the show, listen to this, or buy this product/service?
Your live video needs to sound good. Audio is the most important part of any show.
Practice interview and conversation skills as an infinite game.
Be authentic and personal. Being yourself will connect with your audience.
Commit to a consistent schedule for at least one main show.
Build a funnel with micro content. Share clips, teasers and mini posts that let people know the value you bring and that they can check out the larger show.
No excuses. Level up your software and gear over time. But at first use what you have and get started.
Don’t worry about numbers. If you seek feedback, ask your audience, or people interested in those same topics what might improve the show.

Memorable Quotes

“We should see tough times and challenging life experiences as a ticket that we need to be able to help someone else later on in life.”

“Trauma is a best friend of mine, but at the same time it’s been my worst enemy.”

“College is not for everybody, but it is for somebody.”

“We can create something from nothing. And we don’t need the whole road map. We just have to decide, what is it that we want to do?”

“My marker is always where was I the year before? And where am I today. I’m just always pushing myself to be better than I was the year before.”

Guest Bio

Sri is a video marketing producer. She coaches entrepreneurs to create highly engaging videos that make money for their business. She’s helped hundreds of clients with improving their own business.

Sri is featured in the Top 15 Coaches in Houston Influence. Known for live streaming and marketing content, she is a powerful influence as a personal brand as well. She is a great mentor and also creates a lot of free content for anyone thinking about starting, or improving a live stream show.

FOLLOW SRI
LinkedIn - srimahabir
Instagram - @nexlevconsulting_sri

Doc Peace On Spoken Word Poetry & Building A Creator Business

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 05:29:44 +0000

Incredibly powerful wisdom for all of us to be more "GOLD". A Genuine, Original, Loving, Dreamer on route to your big goals.

She capped the episode off showcasing some of her ability to create poetry by sharing a flow with us on the spot!

Doc Peace also shared the steps to success in building a creator business. And how she went from being a doctor and fulfilling her family's dreams about her career to becoming an award winning poet and entrepreneur.

One of the most incredible moments was when Doc shared her prescriptions for living a mentally healthy life. She shared a practice of adding a small object to a jar, like a jelly bean, or pebble to the jar every time that you show up in a time that it took courage.

The ability to see the physical objects grow in our courage piggy bank will continue to increase our confidence and build momentum.

Doc Peace shared her belief in spirituality and how the universe works through us. We need to trust our inner voice when it guides us toward a direction based on the passions that fuel us.

Create Your Own Story

Doc shared key strategies for succeeding in your side hustle even though you may be really busy with work that pays the bills.

She reminds us that we tell ourselves a story about our life. We create a character that will do things that we don’t even want to do.

Breaking free from this narrative and becoming the hero in our own movie was key for her. She used this approach to pivot from a corporate medical career as a doctor and to poetry and entrepreneurship.

Doc shares how it all started when a voice came to her and said “You don’t just need to wear gold, you need to be gold”.

That was the moment she created her acronym for "GOLD". A Genuine, Original, Loving, Dreamer. And she started to use this concept of gold in all of her creations from art to business.

Doc is a genius when it comes to understanding what it means to build a clear personal brand around a story.

She noted how we can be both person and business oriented. In her case Doc Peace, in my case Justin Nolan. But this goes hand in hand with a broad brand as well. In her case “gold” and in my case “Just Keep Learning.”

The Three Stages Of Success For Creators

Doc shared three overarching stages we go through as content creators.

At first, we have a feeling that we can’t make money in the world of art. We reinforce the belief in the starving artist.

All we can do in phase one is explore. We create, but most of our work is hidden. We need some other way to pay the bills. And we pretty much have to beg for collaborations, partnerships, someone to “put us on”.

In the second phase we probably still hold down a traditional job, but we start to get paid for the creative work we do. People actually book us and provide compensation for what we make.

In this second phase, even though we may be far from “making it” we can see some light and possibility.

Finally in the third phase we know how to craft offers and build revenue that is sustainable on the back of what we create.

In the episode, Doc Peace shared her own progression through these phases. She went from wanting to learn more about poetry, to a commitment to create in public daily. And how that transformed her entire world as a creative.

11 Things That Help Build Your Creator Business

1. Study the greats
2. Get the craft down. Accentuate your strengths, and improve your weaknesses. Write and perform as much as you can for the first year
3. Focus on networking and collaboration
4. Do outreach in order to start creating your own opportunities
5. Figure out who you serve, because you can’t serve everyone as a target audience. Everyone can join later, but in the early stages you have to dial in who you create for and speak directly to them
6. If you’re shy, it may help to take on an alter ego, digital guise, persona to create within
7. What makes you a genuine, original, loving, dreamer? Create for your higher self and step into that role.
8. Build an offer that connects your creativity to a money making offer for other businesses
9. Speak in clear terms when building your brand partnerships so that you are not confusing, vague, or cryptic. People should know what you do, and for who?
10. The more you create, get feedback, partner with people and continue to publish, the more momentum will build, keep going!
11. Create simple, memorable stories that communicate your values and interests when you are creating any content that you want to spread.

Memorable Quotes

“Opportunities don’t always come to you. But you can make them happen.”

“There were so many times that I was starstruck and had to snap myself out of it. But it helps when we realize that we are all people, and they had a start similar to me too where they were just figuring everything out. And they are gold, but so am I.”

“Once you can really own who you are, then you will have the confidence to connect with other people too.”

“Confidence comes through actually making enough attempts that you’ve figured something out for yourself.”

“What are the characteristics of the higher version of you? Write them down. Now show up as that.”

Guest Bio
Doc Peace is indeed a doctor by trade. And she is also an award-winning spoken word poet, business leader and podcast host featured in Forbes.

As an advocate for empowerment through education, Doc Peace supports businesses in leveraging technologies. Through her offers, she helps them leverage things like NFTs & AI to elevate their brand through strategic storytelling and innovative voiceovers.

FOLLOW DOCPEACE
Instagram - @metadocpeace
Twitter - @metadocpeace
LinkedIn - @docpeace

Paul Yeghouchian On Filmmaking And Pursuing Our Passions

Tue, 5 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Our guest today is a perfect example of dedicating your time to a practice. He started filmmaking as an adult because he has always loved to tell stories, especially on camera.

Since then he’s filmed and edited hundreds and hundreds of videos, some corporate, some for fun, but all creative.

We talked about pursuing your passion, ideas for being a great filmmaker and building habits as a creator. We took a masterclass style approach when it came to learning about making your own videos.

Enjoy The Journey

Paul has focused on his true love for filmmaking when it comes to being a content creator. Of course he loves creating for clients. But his ability to make something truly creative is what sets him apart.

He now strikes a nice balance between making money doing something he loves, but also creating just for the sake of enjoyment with vlog style videos, documentary and photography.

His ability to enjoy the whole process and not stress about the numbers is really incredible. Paul also reminded us how valuable it is to live outside of your comfort zone. We should be willing to learn from people that have a different life experience. We can learn a lot from people who are different from us.  

Go For It

Paul decided to take a college filmmaking course because he wanted to know what it would feel like to have the skill set of making movies. He quickly began to understand the basics of planning, shooting and editing movies in order to scratch his own itch of filmmaking.

He talked about this bias toward action, sticking to the process, and how important it is to keep going. It might be because he recently read Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act” but it was clear that Paul understands how important it is to make art for yourself first.

Whether it’s podcasting, writing, or making videos, you will find an audience. Make the art for you first.

Interview the people you find interesting. Collaborate with people you enjoy working with. Go with your gut when it comes to making art.

It was like a Masterclass when Paul shared with us the basics of video creation. How to get started, using a storyboard, cameras, lenses, frame rates, and music. Paul shared his whole tech stack and tips on making a movie, whether documentary, vlog, or cinematic.

15 Reminders For Great Filmmaking

Have fun!
Create in your style. Anywhere from super scripted to completely random.
Know what you want to show when you think of things like frame rate, lens and lighting.
Make things you want to make, the audience will follow.
Start with shorter films and use deadlines to focus on quantity and consistency at first.
Shoot with the best camera you have at your current disposal.
Always have a beginning, middle and end in mind.
Make a ton of videos because each skill will stack onto your next creation.
Organize your footage so it’s easy to find stuff in your edit.
Start your edit with a hook and then the start of a quest. Keep people tuned in to see if the payoff happens.
Add copy-write free music and sound effects to spice up your edit.
Practice a lot.
Find your personal presence on camera by patiently building confidence.
Use project management skills and checklists to keep your workflow simple.
Get things done on time by pre scheduling your workflow into your 168 hours.

Memorable Quotes

“At any point it would be easy to stop going. Especially when no one else is paying attention to what you’re doing. That’s why it’s so important to stick to the process and keep going.”

“You learn by taking action, actually trying something. Making it from start to finish, and then applying what you learned to the next one. And doing that over and over again.”

“It all depends on what you want to show.”

“Know what is really important to you, so that you can say ‘no’ to the other things.”

Guest Bio

Paul is the manager of the creative meetup group “Get Out And Shoot” which has thousands of members learning photo and filmmaking in Toronto.

He is a passionate content creator well versed in all creative software and tech stacks. Paul has worked with tourism boards, local businesses, and community stakeholders since 2015.

He is a photographer and filmmaker himself. He currently creates videos for small businesses. And he makes his own films where he taps into his creative, unicorn space. Paul creates vlogs, documentaries, and co-hosts a weekly live photography show, called “Open Shutter”.

FOLLOW PAUL
Instagram- @PGuch
Youtube - @PaulYeghouchian
Twitter - @PaulGuch

Creator Burnout Lessons On Compassion & Essentialism From Kristin Neff And Greg McKeown

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Taylin Simmonds) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 20:03:27 +0000

In today’s solo episode I’ll talk about reducing stress as a content creator.

I recorded an interview today and Taylin Simmonds, a real leader in the creator space, asked me what I would do to help someone reduce the mental load of being a content creator?

It’s funny to get a question like this because I’ve battled my whole life with anxiety and suicidal ideation. Heck, I’m feeling it a bit while I write this. When it gets really bad, depression creeps in, but that is very rare in the last 15 years.

Suicidal thoughts creep in, but I have minimal fear of any harm. I’m able to laugh at these intrusive thoughts.

Anxiety cursors begin, but rarely, rarely develop into panic attacks.

So, I wanted to share the punchline with you first: the struggle to figure this out is what connects us as human beings.

Now, I’ll elaborate because there are a few other things I’ve learned that can help us live with less stress in the creator economy. But honestly, that line may be all you need.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
Pinterest - JustTries
Facebook - Just Tries
LinkedIn - Justin

Brandon C White On Building A Great Business Plan

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 17:17:45 +0000

Brandon has built and sold successful companies. He’s also helped many other people build their own. He is an investor, entrepreneur, author, and teacher. He is known for his ability to keep things simple, while being very thorough at the same time when creating a business.

Know Your Priority

Brandon is a really skilled business builder. Put simply he’s good at building a business the right way. Whether it’s identifying market opportunities, creating products, or keeping the books in order, he is on point.

We talked a lot about building business of course. But we also talk about relationships, achieving our goals in life and how to deal with things that can get in the way.

Cultivating meaningful relationships—be it with employees, clients, or other stakeholders—not only boosts the emotional intelligence quotient but also creates a reservoir of goodwill and trust that can be drawn upon during challenging times.

When it comes down to success in any of these areas, quite frankly in life, it’s all about knowing your priority and then focusing on that priority.

If you become overly co-dependent on people you won’t have a healthy relationship. So, the interesting thing we talke about was the counter intuitive need to focus on your self first in order to have positive relationships.

Self Care First

One of the things that we talked about was how self care is not at all selfish. For business owners, it can be easy to have the stress and rigor of managing your venture to have a negative impact on your self-care, yet these two elements are crucial underpinnings for sustainable success.

Self-care is not an indulgence but an investment that pays dividends in the form of improved decision-making, creativity, and resilience. A business owner in optimal physical and mental health is better equipped to steer the company effectively, make good decisions and inspire teams.

Brandon shared how he’s always had a commitment to exercise, bodybuilding and cycling from a young age. This is something that compounds, like interest, in a healthy way. The younger we start the better!

If you don’t take care of yourself first, you risk burnout. But you also won’t be available for the relationships that matter most to you. And this never ends well. So the funny thing is, taking care of yourself. Your spiritual, mental, physical health. Is the first step to being able to take care of others.

Build Business The Right Way

Brandon shares a bunch of the businesses he has worked on. He tells us about the ones that succeeded, failed, and those in between.

Often times the idea of “exiting” or selling your business can seem like a mystery. So it was fun hearing how he built and sold his online fishing business.

We talked about the importance of content creation in today’s entrepreneurial environment. How he got into content creation and the things learned along that journey.

How To Build A Business Plan

We got into a conversation that was an absolute masterclass for starting your own business. Brandon shared his tips for creating a plan that will work for you. It’s created in a way that actually tests your ideas and keeps things organized so you either win, or learn.

People often act like business plans are boring. But they shouldn’t be. A business plan should be the overall story of a project within your company. This should be something you really enjoy making. It is the story about what your business does, why it will work and how.

Quarterly, or at the very least twice a year, you should take some time to work on your business. Remove yourself from the day to day, review the plan and set goals that improve the different aspects of your business.

Here are the key topics that Brandon shared:

Know your elevator pitch. It’s not about you. Keep it under 30 seconds. Allow it to tell the story of the problem and solution that creates value for people.
What problem do you solve? In less than two minutes, describe what pain points are you trying to help your customer with? Fill in the blanks X, Y and Z. Person tries “X”. The pain they experience is “Y.” Existing solutions don’t work because “Z”.
What solutions do you provide? In less than two minutes, describe how your product, or service solves the problems in a simple to understand, or frictionless manner. Fill in the blanks Our solution helps you because it “A” “B” “C”. Example: Saves money, saves time and helps you connect with other creators quickly. It’s not the product, it is how the product solves the problems.
Describe and share your product. Customer story of using that product and how it works. Like giving a sample, how can you describe in a concise way what exactly the product is? Know all of the costs to produce every aspect of the product.
Market opportunities. What is the overall market? What is the total addressable market? How specific and niche can you get at first to own a piece of the overall market? Get as fine tuned as you can to strategize to own your serviceable share of the market.
Your business model. What is the supply chain, workflow that your product, or service goes through in your enterprise? How do you make money? B2B or B2C, or a combination of both. How do you create the offer, how do you get leads, how does the transaction occur, how do you fulfill the offer, how does customer service work and what feedback loop exists?
Traction. What are the assets you currently posses to help the business build momentum? These areas can also be creating bottlenecks. Essentially what elements can you lean on and continue to grow that will give your business leverage? Organic SEO, influencers, sales, social media, affiliates, stores, newsletters, email lists. Set current goals for your first few months to improve your traction. This is where your KPI should come from. Get these ideas in a spreadsheet to track progress.
Competition Slide. Use your competition as a learning tool, not to compare your business to theirs. How do they currently operate? How do they create traction? How do they market? How are they priced? What teams do they have? What tasks do they regularly complete to operate the business? Differentiate yourself from your competitors. How can you create your own category to own? What are the things you can focus on within your strategy to make yourself unique and serve your customers? Use a strategy to study such as SWOT Analysis, X/Y Axis, Blue Ocean, Category Design, etc. but don’t obsess over your competitors.
Barriers to entry. How can you achieve a moat between you and your competitors within the market. Overcome challenges that make it harder for your competitors to do. There are many ways to differentiate yourself and make sure that other people couldn’t just copy you and succeed quickly within your market. Any form of content leverage, SEO owenership, IP, network, trade secrets, etc. Continue to set goals that tilt the odds in your favour.
Financials. In less than two minutes, summarize your financial situation. The most important piece is cash flow. In terms of money, this includes your current balance sheet, sales, gross margin, expenses, earnings and net profit. In terms of marketing, or recurring revenue this includes social media, lead generation, conversions, subscribers, unsubscribers, upsells, churn rate, abandonment and returns. Of course this will evolve. But don’t be scared about it. It should be fun to see how much money you can make. Don’t make it complex. This can start on a napkin. But make sure you do it!

As you can see from this recap of the things Brandon shared to help you create a successful business plan, it is simple, but extremely thorough and valuable.

In his podcast, The EDGE with Brandon C White, he goes in more depth on these topics. Throughout an insanely valuable 16 part series he also tackles building your team, funding the business and 7 tips to get started right away.

Memorable Quotes

“If you build a good business that is profitable, growing and solves real problems, you don't have to shop it. Someone is going to come and try to buy it.”

“If you're not dialed in yourself and you don't have an existing life, then codependency can lead to a lot of unhealthy things happening.”

“I didn't even know what I was doing, but eventually at some point in that, I was like, oh, we can flip this and make a lot of money”

“There's so many things I've tried that didn't work that I even forget them. The graveyard is long, but you just have to figure out quickly, are they going to make money?”

“At the end of the day, you can make more money, Justin, but what you can never get back, and you realize this as you get older, is you can never get your time back.”

Guest Bio

Brandon is an entrepreneur from California with two exits (so far).

He has a lot of strikeouts, but learns every time. He is an angel investor, former venture capitalist, business coach and started this journey in marketing at America Online.

As an internet pioneer, he founded Worldwide Angler, Inc which was recognized as the #1 social networking and e-commerce site for sport fisherman on the internet. It ended with a successful sale to a large social media company.

Brandon is a family man, tremendous podcaster and avid fitness enthusiast. Be sure to check out his work because he has a lot of great educational material to help you succeed with your own business and life.

FOLLOW BRANDON
Twitter - @BrandonCWhite
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Website - https://brandoncwhite.com/

How To Create Crystal Clear Clarity Of Your Big Dream

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Conor McGregor) — Thu, 6 Jul 2023 15:58:43 +0000

Do You Have A Clear Dream?

There is an incredible clarity test in the John Maxwell book, “Put Your Dream To The Test” and the questions are:

Can you explain the dream in one sentence?
Can you answer any question about “what” the dream is?
Have you spent many hours defining this dream in detail?
Have you written a clear description of the dream that includes its main features or objectives?
Does the dream align with your current values and purpose?

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Who Are You? Don't Underestimate The Power Of Actually Starting With Why

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, simon sinek) — Mon, 3 Jul 2023 11:00:00 +0000

A Definition Of Start With Why

Growing up creates our “why”. Our family, teachers, hobbies, jobs, and experiences all contribute to the total of our abilities, values, and personality patterns.

When we look back at our development and the people, places and things that created our most aligned sense of self, we find a recipe for success. These clues lead to our why.

A why” does not change. It is the sum total of your experiences that has made you who you are. We can change how we navigate the world, what we do with it, and how aligned we are with our why. But it does not change.

This concept revolves around the idea that to truly inspire others, or ourselves, we must start by explaining the 'why' - our purpose, cause, or belief that inspires us to do what we do.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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3 Questions To Design The Life Of Your Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 13:03:04 +0000

We need to make sure that we have a solid understanding of why it’s so important that we never settle for what we can do, or what we could do, but instead, we decide, for ourselves, what we were made to do.

Personal Life Design

Our past and future can be major distractions. Worrying about things that happened, or could happen is a major source of shame, guilt, and stress.

But, learning about ourselves through self-examination can have a very positive impact as well. If we learn about ourselves in a healthy way we can access those scary, big dreams stirring inside us. Feelings of “I was meant to do more” can be negative, or extremely positive.

Either way, it call comes down to buying into the concept of personal life design. Becoming a deliberate creator of our lives, as opposed to wandering around like zombies.

I’ll talk about the three main questions that help us figure out what we want in a minute. But I want to point out two important things about life design overall.

One, this self-examination is not something to put off. It’s not like, “I’ll start my exercise routine on Monday. This is something that should start right now.

And the other thing is, make self examination a lifestyle. We should all have a regular practice of uninterrupted reflection on where we are, where we wanna head and what we are going to do about it.

Actually, a third thing. Sorry. The concept of Just Keep Learning is really valuable here too. Self-examination is a lifelong pursuit. We are always searching, trying, and discovering new things about our ambitions.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Myke Metzger On Networking, Business, and Social Media

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Myke Metzger) — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 14:17:40 +0000

We can all find success by using what we have at our disposal at any given time. To be honest that’s the only way. But Myke gives a great example of this sharing how he got started with no cell phone, worked his way up to a little cheap one and eventually on to better creator tools.

But a lack of resources never held him back from becoming a great content creator and eventually business owner.

We talked about creativity, personal branding, and living your core values. We discussed how Myke got into content creation, digital marketing and ultimately becoming a leader in business. And he shared some incredible tips on networking and the entrepreneurial mindset.

Our interview was full of incredible advice on achieving your goals, regardless of the industry. Myke shares incredible analogies and strategies for building confidence so that you can live the life you want to live.

For example, reminding us that we are the only ones holding ourselves back. Or the incredible notion that we can still cut through a tree with a dull axe. It might take longer, but once we get there no one can debate we’ve done it.

11 Tips To Be Great At Networking

Replace the word networking with “build relationships” in the same way you would think about dating.
If you want to be associated in a different circle, then you have to have the courage to associate yourself with that circle first.
Imagine it’s just a game and you have to put forward a case in a year, or two from now as to why you should be viewed as a credible figure in a particular category.
Understand the fundamental truth that people simply want to stay connected to people that they are simply interested in staying connected to, there are no “tricks, or hacks”.
Buidling a network of people will lead to a compound effect.
It’s not so much about exchanging business cards, random contact info, it’s about building a reputation on brand and trust.
The gift of gab is underrated. Listen well and make genuine connections that last in people’s memory because you are engaged in learning from them.
Allocate your connecting time to engaging in ways and with people that you are genuinely interested in.
People are naturally more inclined to pay attention when they hear their own name, or things specific to them, so don’t worry about yourself when connecting with people.
Don’t have overthink a “niche” but be sure to create credibility where people confidently know you for something or things.
Be professional and never stop improving your listening and communication skills.

9 Parts Of Developing An Entrepreneurial Mindset

Strive to make sure you’re never the smartest person in the room.
Reaching our potential begins with striving to get clarity, and continuing to make progress.
Compare yourself in a healthy way by asking “Who am I? Who is someone similar to who I aspire to be? And what does that person have, or do that I could learn from in my own way?”
Try to be more uncomfortable and incompetent to just the right amount.
Find the balance of creating things you love, so that you will overcome the low points, but also that is proven to gain traction for an audience.
Strive toward crazy dreams and the business leader you want to be.
Remember there is no excuse for not getting started if you truly want it.
Focus on building confidence, connections and overcoming procrastination by building habits and systems.
Keep going.

Memorable Quotes
“Create content you’d be happy with even if no one else saw it.”
“Don’t attach your self worth to views, or likes.”
“It doesn’t take money to make money in a grassroots fashion.”
“Nobody enjoys being seen by others at the beginning, but it’s worth overcoming that ego to take the first step.”
“Be blissfully ignorant and naive to keep putting in the work toward the vision that you have.”
“Be authentic by serving your audience, but not at the sacrifice of yourself.

Guest Bio

Myke Metzger is an American entrepreneur, author, and speaker. He was born in Long Island, New York in 1989. Myke was featured as one of “The Top 10 Most Influential People of 2018” by Entrepreneur Magazine. He has been featured on MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, FOX, CBS, ABC, Silicon Valley Business Journal, The CW, and more.

Myke is a well-known digital marketing consultant that works with influencers, athletes celebrities, and companies. He is the CEO and Founder of “Stoqd”, a Top 100 branding agency on the east coast. He is also CEO of BRWLRZ, a fight game media company. Both ventures reach success by focusing on 3 things: world-class sites, social media presence, and digital advertising campaigns.

Myke has shared the stage with some of the top high-performance entrepreneurs in the world. He’s also worked as an influencer with nationally recognized brands such as Cash App and Fiverr. With his talent for content creation, he helps these brands promote their products and services to his own audience.

FOLLOW Myke
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Think In These 4 Levels To Make Big Dreams Simple And Less Stressful

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 13:23:56 +0000

Once we learn to choose ambitions that pass the dream filter (like we did in the previous episode) we naturally begin to question the size of our dreams.

Am I thinking too small, or is my idea too grand?

We can remove these types of questions by dreaming in a few different levels, or sizes, while still keeping our eye on the wild prize.
So in this episode, we look at 4 different dream levels. You should always have a dream for each level at any given time.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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7 Questions To Make Sure You Have A Dream Worth Chasing

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 8 Jun 2023 12:47:53 +0000

We all aspire to be a certain person, or do certain things, but often we leave the details as vague “maybe’s” or hope that fate will guide us somewhere.

We all have beautiful talents and wild ambitions that have been covered up by dream blockers like fear and doubt.

Most times we don’t even know that we are blocking our dreams because it happens in our subconscious.

The good news is, we can learn to dream again.
And the most efficient way to do so is to start naming our dreams.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Six Steps To Achieve Your Big Goals According To AI

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Mon, 5 Jun 2023 14:33:56 +0000

Today I wanted to do something quick and simple that explains the overall process of reverse engineering. In the coming episodes I’ll share more detailed insights from Tim Ferris, Alex Hormozi, and my own experience, but for the purpose of sharing the overall concept and because I want to practice with AI, I asked ChatGPT to write the episode.

The prompt I shared was: Write me a script for a 5 minute podcast episode, in my style, on how people can go about reverse engineering their big life goals.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Kristin Being Kristin On Life Values, Content Creation, and Goal Setting

Tue, 30 May 2023 17:20:02 +0000

Showing Up

Kristin has built a really supportive community based on her value of simply showing up.

She has become known for her stance on lifelong learning, and having incredible live conversations with people to learn more about what makes each of us tick.

The idea of pursuing self-awareness as a lifelong goal is something that Kristin really understands.

We talked about pursuing a career in acting, having the humility to focus on her true values in life, how to get started as a content creator, what it was like to become a stand-up comedian, and some of her core memories in life.

All of this leads to some pretty incredible wisdom that we can all benefit from.

Become A Content Creator
Kristin shared the main thing she thinks that holds people back is worrying about the results. If we stay in the present moment and create content that is in line with our values, then good things happen.

We shouldn’t get stuck inside our own thoughts about how good, or bad we are as a creator. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to anyone else. We should just continue to show up for our audience and put the work in.

Kristin went into stand-up comedy in her fifties because it’s something she always thought of trying, she knew it would be a challenge that brought about healthy fear and she loves hearing people laugh.

She really stresses the importance of trying things out too. Over time, the more things we try, the closer and closer we’ll get to being in alignment with our life’s purpose and then the content creation will come more and more naturally.

7 Tips To Live Your Best Life

Everyone in the world is trying to be someone else, but the greatest gift is the ability to just be yourself.
Don’t worry about cliques, fitting in, or comparing yourself to others.
Strive to figure out who you are, not who anyone else wants you to be.
Life will be boring and stressful if you don’t build it for yourself.
Focus on individuality and confidence. If you are a lifelong learner in those two areas you will live your best life.
Remember that emotions, especially fear and sadness, are not only “o.k” but they are really valuable.
If a certain path isn’t for you, whether it’s a job, sport, activity, or school, it’s no big deal, live in the moment and keep figuring it out for yourself.
Don’t make decisions because they are what other people did. Learn from others, gather evidence and clues, but ultimately make your own decisions.

Memorable Quotes

“Everyone in the world is trying to be someone else, but the greatest gift is the ability to just be yourself.”

“Don’t follow the whole crowd of cars in traffic, instead take a left, or a right and enjoy the journey, you never know what you might find.”

“Kids are little people with stresses, fears, and goals too. Just because we are adults out there in the big bad world doesn’t mean that we have more important, or more serious stresses, fears, and goals than our kids.”

“In any relationship, you can’t have someone else validate you. You need to validate yourself.”

Guest Bio
“Kristin Being Kristin” is a mom and wife by day Bartender and comedian at night.

Whether she’s pouring drinks, or solving people’s problems with humor and brutal honesty, she uses Heart, Humor and Sass to share a little inspiration.

She has core values of showing up and lightening up to laugh.

She became quite popular after being a guest on Tea with Gary Vee, and since has created a live interview show, coached people in life and podcasting, and continued to create content that can inspire every day people to believe in themselves.

FOLLOW KRISTIN
Instagram - @kristinbeingkristin
YouTube - @KristinbeingKristin

Should You Burn The Boats And Go All In On Your One Big Dream?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 4 May 2023 16:34:01 +0000

I just finished reading (well listening to) but audiobooks count as reading, right?
Either way, I just finished Matt Higgins, Burn The Boats.

I knew about the book well ahead of time because I’ve always been connected to his work through Gary Vee’s content.

I was looking forward to it for a while, kind of like when a new record drops, for a couple of reasons.

One, I personally have gone back and forth in my mind about when it will be the right time to burn the boats and go all in on the Just Keep Learning podcast.

And secondly, I felt that the information in the book fits perfectly into the clarity that I am trying to provide in these posts on finding your one thing and figuring out how to pursue your own goals.

So, what does it mean to burn the boats, and should you do it?

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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6 Productivity Myths, 6 Dream Blockers, And How To Pick Your Big Dream

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 2 May 2023 11:00:00 +0000

I love creating content about goal setting and clarity for our big dreams. But even with a lot of tips and tricks, people still get stuck. I find when we have trouble brainstorming an idea to focus on, then there is something getting in the way.

When something is getting in the way from letting us dream big, it’s often the case that we need to reset our personal operating system.

You know how we reset our devices by adding updates and upgrading the current operating software? Well, our minds need updates too. But we often fail to see it this way.

Also, if you’ve ever been prompted by your device to update now, or remind me tomorrow, if you’re anything like me, you almost always hit, “update later.”

This is not the end of the world, but with our own minds and goals, it’s important not to put it off.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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A Quick And Fun Way To Pick Your One Thing To Focus On

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 15:56:10 +0000

Alright, I think at this point it goes without saying, but it is almost impossible to focus on only one thing. In many ways, the idea of “balance” is a myth.

We have many things in life that we need to focus on; family, friends, self-care, work, and unfortunately health at times.
This is where counterbalance is the true reality.

At times we will be so focused on parenting for example because our kiddo is home sick. And that’s o.k. We can drop the other stuff for a bit.

These things are the foundation for life.

The One Thing

The foundational priorities of self-care, wellness, friends, and family are not the goals that I would include when referring to your “one thing”.

As busy as we may be with those areas of life, at other times we’ll have the chance to go head down, work our ass off, and be super focused on the one thing that is our greatest goal at any given moment.

I just want to point that out quickly because I understand there is more than “one thing”. Please do give yourself the time and space to be able to spend energy on all of the other priorities. Because goal setting is an infinite game.

We get to play forever.

So what do I mean by “your one thing” then?

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Joe Dreamz On Hip-Hop, Personal Development, And Chasing Your Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Joe Dreamz) — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 21:16:15 +0000

Growing Up

Joe Shared the challenge of growing up in a primarily white neighborhood. We talked about the importance of finding your tribe and being a part of a community that you feel you belong to.

In this case, similar to how we feel about JKL, Joe talks about the “Live Joe Dreamz” community as a place where he finally feels he belongs.

For that reason, he’s doubling and tripling down on building as big a community as possible. The vision for the community is simply a world where everyone lives their big dreams.

Just Believe In Yourself

Being a content creator, filmmaker, and hip-hop artist with an important message, Joe had to take a leap of faith toward a creative career. He shared that increasing your creative confidence by thinking less and creating more, will work out if you believe in yourself.

This style and value came out of a silver lining moment he had in the studio. Joe tells the story of booking studio time last minute which led to free styling and creating some of his best work on the spot. This also led to future production being more efficient, and unlocked a world of future creativity and speed in creating content.

It all comes down to trusting in the process. Just make the next thing, then the next and the next. Don’t stress, or worry about results. Joe took his own leap of faith to start street performing, and freestyling. This is well documented as he performs on the street outfront of Padres games.

His most viral video in fact took place in New York at a Padres Playoff game. The video showing a fan assaulting him has been shared around the internet hundreds of millions of times.

Obsessed With Personal Development

Joe Dreamz as a brand was built after he was introduced to the world of personal development. A friend connected him to a mentor who brought him to his first conference.

At the conference was speaker Robert Kiyosaki, author of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’. His talk opened up a whole new world for Joe as he learned about the concept of self-help.

He became obsessed with the idea of personal development. He read a ton of books and consumed as many resources as possible that would help him understand the world of success.

He knew that spreading these concepts to other people who have no idea that they exist was going to be part of his life’s work. But, trying to share these ideas with friends, or family was a struggle. It’s not as exciting, or engaging as mainstream media.

And so, Joe Dreamz was born. The combination of personal development and the arts, to create edutainment that helps people learn and see out their own goals in life.

7 Tips To Help You Live Your Dreams

Trust that you can do it the way you want to do it.
Figure out “your” perfect. What level is the best balance of being ready to share, but doesn’t take so long to make that it keeps you from creating your next piece?
Maintain the mindset that we can always turn trash into treasure.
If you do what most people do you will get what most people get.
Life is happening for you, not to you. Everything we experience is for us. So when an event takes place in our lives, it’s helpful to ask, what could I gain from this, or at least, what can I learn from it?
Find out who the successful people in your field are. Study what they do that sets them apart, decide what you can copy from them and what you can do that is unique to set you apart. Combine those things with consistency and continue to put them into practice over time.
Always take moments to pause. Don’t rush to answer something, take action, or talk. Figure out the best balance of action versus feedback and planning. You don’t want to procrastinate, but you do want to move with a sense of patience and calm.

Memorable Quotes

“When someone poops in your comment section, you can poop back, or you can use that to come up with something playful, or to win them over.”

“The live your dreams cause has been around since the beginning of human time, so I’m just the founder of the company that wants to spread this message as far as possible.”

“Something that is small, but practical and can have a big impact for people over time, is taking a moment to pause, to just pause and think before we act, or speak.”

Guest Bio

Joe Dreamz is a musician, speaker, and content creator. He has an old-school message of personal development, and chasing your dreams. He combines this life philosophy with a new school sound through hip hop and filmmaking.

Joe Dreamz is a breath of fresh air in the music industry because he focuses on purpose and creativity first.

Before rapping, Joe worked dead end job after dead end job and lacked a sense of purpose. But he realized the window to his Dreamz was slowly closing so he decided to take a leap of faith. Now he inspires others to do the same.

He can do an even better job by building the business brand, so it’s important we all know his name. And “don’t forget the z”.

FOLLOW JOE DREAMZ

Instagram - @Joedreamz
TikTok - @joedreamzmusic
YouTube - JoeDreamz

7 Fast And Free Ways To Try Out Your Possible Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 14:30:06 +0000

The term “Dream Big” appears on T shirts, water bottles, posters and many other things we see in our day to day life. And I love seeing it!

Another thing that is pretty popular is the idea of focusing on your one big dream to be able to make it come true. Books like “The One Thing” make this concept popular.

But, what if you don’t know what your one thing is? Or, what if you don’t know how to dream big?

Over the last fourteen posts I’ve shared some tips on how to dream big and how to think of many ideas that could become our one thing.

However, I know, because people tell me all the time, that oftentimes we still don’t have solid ideas that we feel good about.

And that’s where the art of trying things comes in.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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How To Actually Decide On Your Big Beautiful Dream By Naming Infinite Games

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 12:53:56 +0000

I am a huge believer in pursuing dreams for two big reasons. One, it prevents regret, which is such a powerful state of sadness. And, two it helps us live each day with a little more vitality. A little more pep in our step.

It doesn’t matter if it’s for work, for play, or anywhere in between. At any given moment in time, we can establish a big dream. And whenever I feel like giving up on mine, I remember these words from poet John Greenleaf Whittie.

“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.”

Play Infinite Games

In a future episode we will look at a more concrete, practical, step by step filter to decide if a goal qualifies as a big dream or not.

But for now I just want to share one of the key indicators.

A big dream should create an infinite game for you. I was trying to think of a good way to describe what I mean by this and I got the urge to see how A.I. would explain this.

I was quite blown away by the response when I said “describe to me the importance of playing infinite games when it comes to our well being.”

For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.**

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Do You Know What Turns Your Joy Dial To Bring You Great Motivation And Energy?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:18:45 +0000

Find Energy Motivation & Flow From Your Day To Day

One method to gather more evidence of what brings us vitality is to measure the activities that we do in our day-to-day lives.

Every experience we have will either increase or decrease our energy. And some activities give us intrinsic motivation, whereas others kind of feel like we could take them or leave them.

Ultimately the goal should be to find the thing that gives us the most energy, intrinsic motivation and if we’re lucky, a state of flow.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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3 Questions To Help You Plan Your Values And Lifestyle First

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:19:46 +0000

Finding YOUR Alignment

Achieving our greatest ambitions will not come easy. We will experience ups and downs. And heck, we might not even survive. But the pursuit is worth it if we are living in alignment.

Like a car without alignment, we can veer off course.

The more aligned our wheels are the better we can keep our trip between the lines.

In order to know if we are living in alignment we benefit from our ability to answer three questions.

Sure, we can have conflicts between the work we are doing and the values we stand for. In fact we most likely will. But the goal should be to do a little bit each day to get more and more aligned.

We should learn more and more about our personal values so that our work can become more and more an extension of what we stand for.

There exist two big questions that we must answer to help us decide on our alignment needs

Who Are You?
Why Do You Work
What Do You Want To Do?

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Luke Page On Adversity, Coaching And How To Manifest Your Goals

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, luke page) — Thu, 9 Mar 2023 13:20:46 +0000

Be Efficient With Your Goals

Luke shared one of his hacks for building skills more efficiently. Find ways to get paid for improving skills that help you with your bigger vision. They don’t have to be directly tied to the long term goal. For example, he is an actor because it helps with confidence on camera and networking.

Every goal is built on transferable skills. How can you leverage your current work, schedule and downtime to practice skills that are in line with your bigger desire even if you aren’t there yet?

When it comes to setting goals be sure to build on a foundation of the lifestyle you want. It’s ok to mimic and copy others actions to reach success, but when it comes to the lifestyle you build that’s a personal need. Be sure to set goals that fit with your own lifestyle goals so that you will keep going when times get tough.

Finally, you won’t reach the next level alone. Don’t wait to seek help. No matter what evel you’re at, collaborating and leaning on others is helpful. So, have the courage to ask questions, get noticed, and be a person that people want to be around.

Getting Into Personal Development

We talked about the path that Luke took to go from wondering what to do in life to becoming a top coach in the industry.

Luke opened up about his sister’s battle with addiction that led him to focus on personal development and being as perfect as possible to avoid going down that path himself.

This seemed like a “good thing” at the time. But, Luke shared about the life changing moment he had at a Tony Robbin’s event that allowed him to understand it a bit better. He realized that he had a lot of personal work to do first in order to succeed in business.

Growing up entangled in her struggles as a heroine addict, he held onto a lot of blame, anger and hatred toward. He knew he had to heal and apologize to his family.

As difficult as these experiences were, it built his character and empathy that he can apply to working with clients.

How To Be A Great Coach

Luke shared the difference between coaching and teaching. When teaching we have a script, or prescription of curriculum. When coaching, there are always unique, contextual, individual problems to solve.

Coaching is much more about questions than answers. Guiding and supporting people while they craft questions and search for their own answers. Using honesty and transparency to help people figure things out on their own is key to coaching.

Any great coach is able to come at life questions from a place of love and compassion. It’s not enough to simply lead, but we need to actually build trust. The coach, client relationship is the foundation, not fear-based, external factors

Make sure your clients are also building on a foundation of relationships, family, and their own health first. Don’t just dive right into their top of pyramid goals. Without the foundation nothing is sustainable.

Finally, everyone has strengths. Sometimes life has really crushed their confidence and they feel like they have no skills. But starting with uncovering strengths can have exponential impact at the beginning of a coaching relationship.

14 Tips To Use Manifestation To Get What You Want

Use your time intentionally.
“Create your own luck” by staying true to you and opening your network to helpful people.
Don’t just shoot for things like money, understand what will bring you true meaning and vitality.
Set the intention and through the ups and downs never stop working at it.
You can start for free just by searching for content related to mindset, and manifestation.
Follow the blueprints. There are great authors who create for this audience as well, like Joe Dispenza.
Cut back, or stop altogether wasting time watching content, news, and social media that doesn’t fuel your mind.
Commit one to two hours per day to intentional, focused mindfulness.
Reduce physical and mental clutter by minimizing as much as possible.
Cut negative influences and people from taking up your energy.
If we leave our thoughts in default mode we will always stay the same as yesterday. Nothing will change. So step one is becoming aware, not judging, just being aware of the negative thoughts we have.
Become intentional about your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. Each day get them more in alignment with what you want instead of going through the motions.
Then you want to decide what person do you “not want to be”? How does that person think, what do they believe and feel?
Now decide “who do you want to be”? As much as you can reflect, in as deep a state as possible on becoming that person. Using what they think, believe, and feel play a movie in your mind of this person. Envision you as the hero in your movie. Do it as much as possible, and as intensely as possible.

Memorable Quotes

“I’m so sick of seeing all these leaders in the business space who have ruined the rest of their lives. Why can’t we bloody have it all?”

“It’s not about being perfect. It’s simply about deciding that you are not neglecting this important area of your life.”

“Let your heart out. If you block it then you’ll end up in the wrong places.”

“You’ve obsessed over stupid shit, like the things you are not good at, for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life. What if instead of obsessing over the things you don’t want, you started obsessing over the things you do want?”

Guest Bio

Luke Page is a mindset and business coach. He helps 6 figure client driven business leaders by teaching them how to develop their mindset, market and sell on social media.

His personal philosophy is simple. “Grow a successful business while staying healthy on the inside and out, be a great mum/dad/partner, be a good person and have heaps of fun along the way.”

He has a mission to improve the landscape for struggling business owners. And he wants to make sure that people succeed with their career related goals while still building a foundation on what matters most in life.

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5 Tips To Help You Live In Peace Now And Still Win The Dreams You Want In The Future

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Mon, 6 Mar 2023 15:33:01 +0000

5 Key Points To Live In The Moment

The book is long and goes in great depth, but here are five of the key points from The Power Of Now:

Be aware of your thoughts: Notice when your mind is wandering to the past or future, and gently bring your attention back to the precise, specific moment.
Focus on your breath: Do some quick breathwork and focus on the sensation of air moving in and out of your body to feel more grounded.
Pay attention to your senses: Notice the things you can see, hear, taste, feel and smell around you to stay engaged with that scene.
Accept what is: Instead of resisting or judging the current situation, accept it as a circumstance, not a stressor.
Let go of the past and future: Instead of dwelling on past mistakes, waiting for something to happen, or worrying about the future, try to focus only on what you can do right now.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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3 Fun Questions To Help You Choose Your Big Goal In Life?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Sat, 4 Mar 2023 16:35:03 +0000

I am often asked, what if I have too many ideas? Or what if I have no ideas at all?
Now, it would be unfair, but it’s tempting in both cases to say, “Just Try” things and call it a day.

I will elaborate, but that is the main point. If you can strengthen your dreamer muscle, there will be plenty of ideas, too many to even try them all.

So the simple answer is just pick something and try it.

Well, if you are really stuck, how do you pick something?

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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How To Create Meaning And Perspective To Start Building Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 2 Mar 2023 15:50:16 +0000

Here’s the bottom line friends in this JKL community, I want you to be excited about your life. No matter how young, or old you are, I want you to be excited about the life that you are creating.

The Meaning Of Life

And to me, the meaning of life question is “meaning.”

And I actually got this from Viktor Frankl, not just a Holocaust survivor, but as crazy as it sounds, thriver.

Frankl believed that even in the most difficult and seemingly hopeless situations, individuals can find meaning in their lives. This is because meaning is the number one motivating force in human beings.

So What Is Meaning?

Frankl wrote that meaning can be found in three ways:

Through achievement by setting goals and working towards them.
Through relationships by giving and receiving love.
Through suffering by transcending challenges and emerging stronger.

Now, assume Frankl is right and meaning is the most important thing in our lives.
And then look at these three ways to find meaning. Through goals, relationships, and overcoming challenges.

All three of these can be achieved through the pursuit of a big dream. Yet, so often when we hear the term Big Dreams we are probably thinking about little kids wishing on a star.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Terrance McMahon On Sales, Goalsetting And Turning Life Around

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Terrance Mcmahon) — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 15:43:21 +0000

Terrance almost died at his rock bottom. He shares this experience and how he bounced back in his incredible TED Talk “From Broken To Beautiful”. Now he helps not only himself, but others live a healthier, wealthier and purposeful life.

Terrance shared the main points from his TED Talk “From Broken To Beautiful”. There were so many special moments in his life that were filled with adversity which created the leader that he is.

He shared how addiction is less about a disease, or spirituality struggle and more about a need for true connection. Terrance also shared some of his wisdom around the fact that rock bottom can be such a blessing when you realize that up is the only direction left to go.

Become Great At Sales

Terrance is a very successful business leader and entrepreneur. When asked what one skill he recommends someone new to business should study, he said “definitely sales.”

Sales is a skill that we need no matter what our goal is when we are interacting with people. And it’s something that can make a lot of money if you are good at it. Because any business would love to have people who can make more sales.

It’s also something you can learn for free. On the internet, with A.I. or through books you can learn the knowledge. And then the way to get great is simply to practice.

Terrance shared the key points to remember when we are selling. Like, make sure you have alignment with the product. You must actually believe in what you’re selling. Remember that people buy physiology, emotions and energy, not the information.

Think like a doctor when selling. How do doctors work? They ask questions, and then they present a solution as an expert. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, then you either need more alignment, more knowledge, or more practice.

Authenticity is key. You want to be speaking with certainty and conviction even if you are not one hundred percent sure. Be the voice of calm and reason as you take people from hell, with a problem into heaven, with a solution.

Turn Your Life Around

Terrance shared how books are super underrated. Not only do they increase our status and knowledge, but books give us the free tools to be able to achieve our goals.

He shares a couple of timeless books that will help you turn life around. He also created an incredible offer to give away a book if you have one that you need and can’t afford.

One of the really intriguing moments was Terrance sharing the difference between rehabilitation and recreation.

We don’t want the ability to rehabilitate ourselves because rehabilitation puts us back to the broken person we were in the first place. Instead, we want to improve our ability to re-create ourselves. How can we actually become a new person?

The steps are simple. Explore the world for ways in which your should comes to life. What gives you meaning? Once you find it, acquire the skills it takes to work on this project. And start taking action.

Zoom out five years and ask yourself what does success with this look like? You have the ability to choose new paths, new skills and a new life changing domino that can knock the rest of your dominos over.

As you start to re-create and reinvent your life a void will appear. Be sure to stay aware of what people, places and things you fill those voids with. Do they map to that new life you want? Decide what tiny actions and habits you need today, that are lined up, like dominos to eventually knock down the big ones.

12 Things To Remember When Building Your Own Brand

Remember that we learn by copying others. Find the leaders in your space that you are drawn to and see if there are things they do that you would like to model your work after. Over time you will find your original voice, but in the beginning, steal from great role models.
Find the map, or blueprint of where you want to go. Someone else has done this, or something similar, so steal their knowledge, wisdom and apply it to your experience.
Build authority and social proof right away and don’t stop. Focus on solving problems for people in this niche day in and day out. Think of it like building a reputation.
Create content to start practicing and sharing that you are a leader in this space. Don’t wait until the end to document the whole process. Be sure and show the building and come up that you are on from the beginning.
From this plan, create some mini habits that are the small dominos you can start knocking over right away.Don’t take on huge changes, just little habits that keep you aligned with the purpose you feel.
Decide on the tools that you will need to be successful and start acquiring as many as you can.
Learn to focus on one thing at a time by evaluating your priorities. If something yields a greater return for your success then you should focus your time and energy there.
Learn and then practice the skills that you need to achieve your goal.
Find a guide that has been there before and who can help support you and keep you pointed in the right direction while you work your way along the journey.
Once you have a vision and direction, make the decision to be the new person you want to be. How does that person walk, talk and act? Who do they hang around with? What do they eat and how do they live?
Focus on being resourceful, instead of worrying about what you don’t have, focus on what you can get access to.
Always believe in the product, or service you offer because it’s important that you speak with conviction to ensure that your solution is helping the right people.

Memorable Quotes

“We don’t have an unlimited amount of shots we can take in life, we probably have four or five good ones.”

“If you wake up five years from now and you’ve accomplished something that woke up your sole and woke everybody else up in the process, what did you do?”

“Once you get started you’re halfway done.”

“Don’t try for massive change right away. Line up one small domino and build momentum. Want to get in shape? Don’t go to the gym everyday, do one pushup. Want to eat healthy? Don’t go on a super strict diet, just eliminate coke.”

“The bamboo tree grows under ground for five years before it shows any signs of life and then it comes out of nowhere and shoots up eighty feet in two or three weeks.”

Guest Bio

Terrance McMahon is a business leader and entrepreneur. He is the author of four books, including the best-seller Superhero Self: How To Recover From Anything. His TEDx Talk, Broken to Beautiful: An Algorithm to Recreate Yourself, has over 100,00 views. His podcast has over 500 5-star reviews. He is also the founder of the Re-Create App.

In 2016, Terrance McMahon was sitting in a hospital room dying from liver failure. Doctors said he had 90 days to live and that his chances of finding a match for a liver transplant in time were slim. So slim that it wasn’t until the end of his 90-day death sentence that a liver from a young prisoner in Alabama was deemed a match.

Given a second chance at life, Terrance decided to recreate himself from a multi-millionaire morbidly obese, alcoholic CEO to a healthy and sober business coach, speaker, podcaster, bestselling author, and mentor.

Today, he’s living the life he’s always dreamed of — and he’s doing it while helping others and on his time.

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Alex Fasulo On Being An Influencer, How To Build A Freelance Business And Life Lessons

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 13:39:13 +0000

The Importance Of Owning Your Life

Alex shares how she was always a bit of a troublemaker. She was never rude, or ignorant, but found herself pushing back against authority in day to day life. Whether it was toward a teacher as a child, or a boss, she always wanted to do things her own way.

For this reason she didn’t really excel in school, or as an employee.

But for all of the challenges she faced in the institution of school, or work, she always remained a life long learner and has a ton of great skills that serve her well as an entrepreneur.

Something that stood out from our conversation was how Alex made peace with the fact that she would make a low to mid level income as a writer, but that would be great because she liked to write.

This shows the importance of choosing careers we love. And it also shows that if you do good work, with a bit of luck and persistence, the money will follow.

From $0 to Half A Million As A Freelancer

Alex is a big believer in owning your time and energy. She tried a whole bunch of different freelance ideas when she first decided that becoming a business owner was her path.

Since then she has learned to write effectively, teach, build engaged social media communities and create effective money making, freelance companies.

MSNBC featured her in an article titled “This 28-year-old earns $378,000 a year on Fiverr—and just bought a car for $50,000 in cash”.

She has scaled her business life to millions of dollars by learning to hire people, develop a CEO mindset, and create multiple revenue streams instead of exchanging time for money.

We talked about a few of the strengths Alex has as a business leader, like scaling her team and onboarding people she can trust. We also learned of the struggles she has with staying focused and why surrounding herself with the right people helps to overcome the things she feels are areas of growth.

Becoming A Full-Time Entrepreneur As A Writer

We got to hear all about her love for writing. How that love became the side hustle and future business that made the most sense.

But, also how that love made it quite simple to create her first book.

Alex has a book agent and Wiley is her current publisher. She talks about what it was like writing her first one and how many ideas she has for the next twenty!

Alex shares all about the current state of Freelancing. She explains how simple and basic it was when she started, compared to today as the industry continues to expand.

Finally, she was kind enough to share a few steps from her book that explain how anyone can get started in the world of freelance.

14 Tips For Being A Successful Freelancer

Start journaling ideas as it relates to problems you see in the world and skills that you have that can solve those problems. Think about interests, strengths and dreams you have that you might be able to connect to a freelancing service.
Remember that freelancing is by no means saturated. There will always be opportunities for good people who do efficient and effective work.
Create a mind-map, or brainstorm on a paper your strengths, interests and skills that you are better than other people at, or things that you would like to learn, that if you were to get good at them you could use them to bring value to other people, or businesses.
Know the values and personal goals that you have for your freelancing journey. They can evolve over time, but knowing what you stand for is important when making decisions about what jobs to take, how to price, and how much, or how little to scale.
Once you have a few possible ideas do some initial research on the existing freelance marketplaces for all of the job postings that exist. Write down two, or three top categories that you think you might like to work in and then take a deeper dive.
Don’t pick a skill for the sole fact that you will make money. There are enough skills to choose from that you can choose something that will make money, but is also something that you enjoy getting out of bed to do. This way you will be able to work through any plateaus and roadblocks.
Once you have it narrowed down to a couple of ideas, for example coding and blog writing, spend time looking at the current postings and niches. Examine the top freelancers, their prices, copywriting and profiles.
Create your own professional profile and start by posting one or two jobs in the marketplace.
At first it’s all about getting experience. Book your first few jobs, impress the clients by over delivering and start getting some great reviews.
Continue to learn what you like and don’t like about the chose category and either tweak, pivot, or keep going.
Once you feel a bit established in a category learn to grow your audience and improve your marketing, advertising and sales as you become a more and more established business owner.
Build a trustworthy brand. Treat your profile as, or more important than a resume. And be professional, deliver things on time according to the specifications promised.
Remember that it's fun to start, but there will likely be moments you want to give up. That is where so many people drop off, but if it’s important to you, keep going, keep learning, make adjustments and ask for help.
If all else fails, or you really want to have all of your bases covered, check out Alex’s book and Free Facebook Group where you can learn all about becoming a great freelancer yourself.

Memorable Quotes

“I am really passionate about wanting people to know they have options in life.”

“I’m a big fan of wanting to control how I spend my own time.”

“Start posting. What’s meant for you won’t find you if you’re just in the shadows all the time.”

“There isn’t one right way to do this. They can all work, but that’s why it’s so important to have a valuable why and know your personal reasons for building business.”

“I see A.I. automating so much of our work that we can get up to 75% of our time back and it’s amazing to think what we could do with that time.”

“Freelancing is simple. It’s not easy, you’ll have to put in the work, but it is simple and well worth it.”

Guest Bio

Alex quit her corporate job at 22 in 2015. She had no plan, money, or idea what she was going to do. She had been selling $5 editing services on Fiverr at the time for side cash. This led to a breakthrough when she started to wonder if that very site could support her full-time?

Fast-forward three-months and Alex was making enough as a freelance writer on Fiverr to afford her bills in Brooklyn, New York.

Obsessed with the potential of not having to go back into an office and work for a boss, Alex doubled down on the marketplace and three-years-later, was featured for the first time on CNBC Make It as a ‘25-year-old who made $150,000 in 6-months.’

She released her first ebook ‘How I Made 6 Figures in 6 Months on Fiverr’ later that year, going onto shift her social media profiles to a freelancer-focus.

Her social media accounts and personal brand grew quickly. She has a million followers across her profiles and an incredibly engaged group of Facebook. Alex is a full-time freelance content creator and educator who is passionate about showing every single person they deserve to live a life free from woes about work.

Having achieved financial freedom in her 20s, Alex is on a mission to show everyone that the most valuable thing a person can do today is own their income streams.

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3 Really Simple Tips To Help You Slow Down And Feel Freedom

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 16:15:39 +0000

If you have a big dream already, great, all you need to do is continue to take action, pivot, and keep going.

And, if you don’t have a big dream yet, that’s ok too. It will take us a while to figure it out, but it’s so much fun and there is no rush.

I know many of us feel “stuck”.
People often use this term, “stuck” to describe how they feel.

They feel they’re too comfortable or playing it safe.

We feel this way, comfortable, or safe, because that’s simply all we have come to know. Our routines, our energy, and our goals have become super familiar, maybe even boring.

But it’s important to remember, this is no safe way to live. If we put our dreams on the backburner we will regret it, which is far from safe, and definitely not going to be comfortable.

The good news is, the very feeling of “stuck” is actually a great thing!

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Stephen Lovegrove On Overcoming Adversity, Life Coaching, And Goalsetting

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 16:29:57 +0000

Stephen is nicknamed “America’s Life Coach”. His own discovery and building of self-awareness led him to the field of coaching others. Now he is one of the most powerful coaches in the world.

Beyond working with clients he creates incredible content and shares free information that can help anyone reinvent their life.

We talked for a while about growing up in a cult, breaking free to build his own future, goal setting and what it takes to be a successful life coach.

Overcoming Adversity Growing Up In A Cult

Stephen shared the incredibly challenging life experience he had growing up in a religious cult. It was tough because he was faced with internal conflict at twelve years old as he was learning what it meant to be gay.

But even more challenging, is what it meant to be gay within this religious context.

It’s an understatement to say that he environment he was growing up in was not at all supportive. In fact this led to him being kicked out of his childhood home.

He shares about this challenging period in life where coming out to friends and family did not feel like it was in the realm of possibility at the time.

One of the cool moments of our chat was Stephen sharing how all of us have things that we just intrinsically feel are impossible. We should explore those often because in all likelihood they are possible.

Living A Life Of Compassion

Stephen is not against specific people or groups of people. He is against the idea that we must put people at odds with each other based on ideology.

If people believe things differently from you, it does not mean they are wrong. It doesn’t not make them evil, and it does not mean something is wrong with them

We talked about this idea of being much more compassionate. Not necessarily accepting the things that people do. But understanding that people don’t just choose to be a certain way.

Everything a person is choosing makes sense, on some level, in their brain. Given the same circumstances and experiences, we would be in a similar position ourselves.

Instead of always seeking, or debating absolute, right answers based on certainty, we should approach beliefs as possibilities. We should approach any debate with an open mind and an open heart.

What Is The Goodlife?

Being obsessed with the classic big questions has been a big part of Stephen’s life. “Why are we here? What is life for? Why do bad things happen to good people? Etc.”

Much of our conversation was about topics of philosophy, spirituality, and psychology, Simply put, sometimes there are no answers to life’s greatest questions.

Some things require unknowns and mystery, and that’s ok.

Make The World Your Greatest Teacher

We talked a bit about learning growing up. Stephen shared that he loved to learn, but not necessarily school. He shared how he started enjoying formal education more once he decide to take learning and school and make it his own. He would create his own assignments, or get permission to do things that were different than what the teacher had assigned.

This is similar to how we should approach life and goal setting. If we want to learn something, or we want to head in a new direction, all of the information exists already.

We need to be the driver. We should choose what we want our next step to be. In order to live with alignment, you will have your own unique, current truth. Lean into learning about that direction, not stories from the past.

It was really powerful when Stephen shared his tips on being a life coach. Not only are these tips for coaches, but they will help anyone trying to better their own life too.

11 Tips For Life Coaching & Goalsetting

Read the prosperous coach by Rich Litvin & Steve Chandler.
Coaching has a low bar for entry and a high bar for success, be the person willing to meet that high bar.
Always meet people and do work with them in the present, calm, mindful moment.
Don’t let your sales, or marketing outperform your coaching. The coaching needs to measure up or be better than the ability to sell it.
Stay connected to the needs and experiences of your clients because they evolve, shift and circumstances change.
Coaching can be a rewarding and lucrative career, but only if you really want to build with integrity and values. Hold yourself accountable to serve from your heart and integrity to clear that high bar of success and you’ll do fine.
You shouldn’t have unhappy clients because you should build your business on a strong foundation and the values of coaching itself, not the money.
Don’t worry, or stress about the negativity of the industry. There will be bad coaches out there. It does not have anything to do with you. Be on your own journey. Focus on your improvement and your client’s goals.
Decide to be grounded in doing work that you truly believe in, that is uniquely you, not just copying what other people do.
Let others hold you accountable. Have a coaching relationship yourself. Be sure to always be a client yourself, no matter how much success you achieve.
Be a lifelong learner when it comes to the craft of coaching and never stop working on yourself.

Memorable Quotes

“One of the greatest gifts in life is being exposed to someone else’s experience and perspective that is different than our own and that is always available to us.”

“It doesn’t work to build a life only out of the things you don’t want. There has to be a vision in front of you that pulls you forward.”

“There are always insights waiting in the questions, what do you really want and what part of you doesn’t want it?”

“Most of our loyalty, relationship struggles are not about the person, but the identity and belief. It’s not so much about the externals of cutting people off, because often times those ideas stick around. It’s about on an inner level making sure you can fully step into the new.”

“The biggest challenge, but often the biggest miracle is seeing yourself in a new way.”

“The biggest thing was releasing the idea that I needed to prove something.”

Guest Bio
America’s Life Coach, Stephen Lovegrove is one of the fastest-growing names in personal development. After a traumatic childhood as a gay child in a fundamentalist cult, Stephen restarted his life and created the life and business of his dreams.

Author of the international bestseller, “How to Find Yourself, Love Yourself, and Be Yourself: The Secret Instruction Manual for Being Human,” Stephen now supports entrepreneurs and entertainers in changing their lives from the inside out.

From Billboard chart toppers to household name CEOs to national television stars, Stephen is the go-to coach for influential people who need something to shift - and shift NOW.

With millions of fans globally on social media and repeatedly ranking as the number one life coach on Instagram, Stephen is a prolific media personality, featured in all of the major news and media outlets.

FOLLOW STEPHEN
Instagram - @drlovegrove
Twitter - @drlovegrove
Website - stephenlovegrove

Chasing Big Dreams Is Easy, The True Challenge Is Coming Up With One

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Wed, 8 Feb 2023 16:25:24 +0000

I love sharing ideas about big dreams.

And a lot of these ideas come to me when commuting somewhere. Well, today I thought of something that gets in the way of a lot of our big dreams.

While driving to meet a client it popped into my head:

"Slowing down enough to gain clarity is the challenging part. Pursuing the dream, even achieving the goal, that's the easy part."

It’s true.

Most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
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Marley Jaxx On Business, Content Creation And Success While Living With Cancer

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Marley Jaxx) — Mon, 6 Feb 2023 14:43:19 +0000

Marley uses the hashtag "Get Jaxxed " when it comes to challenging her audience to build a bigger brand. It’s a brilliant catchphrase, that shows her powerful skillset in language and marketing.

It’s definitely a great summary of her own brand too.

Her current business is a joint venture with her husband, Steve, called "Youtube Lead Machine". They specialize in helping clients create organic youtube content that turns into leads for their business, while growing their authority.

Figure Out Your Dreams And Goals

Marley explains how turning your passions and interests into a career, or at least part of a career, like a side hustle is very realistic. But, it needs to start with organic, intrinsic pursuits so that you actually love it.

Be sure to connect things you are good at, to what you enjoy and make sure that people need, or want it.

We talked about the fact that every person has a different path to success.

Some people might want to go very niche with their content, some may want to stay a little broader and others somewhere in between. Or, some of us might not even know yet.

Overcoming Adversity On The Journey

The name ‘Jaxx’ actually means someone who can overcome any obstacle that comes their way. One of the ways she overcomes obstacles and achieves her goals is something she learned from Tony Robbins.

The life lesson that had the greatest impact on Marley was learning that if you change the story you tell yourself, then you’ll be able to shift toward the life you want.

The idea of “Be, Do, Have” is a mental framework for success that Marley leans on. She explained that we need to be the type of person who would achieve the things we want to have. We need to be that type of person first. Then we do the things that person does and finally, we will receive what that person gets.

But it first starts with defining our identity. Deciding who we are.

Fighting The Money Monster

Many of us, maybe even most of us grow up with confusion around money. Marley was no different. She talks about getting more and more comfortable with the value and positive aspects of money.

She shares about overcoming money blocks, understanding how to make more, getting more comfortable earning more, charging more, and also spending more.

Money is simply a “thank you” for the value we receive, and we should think about our investments this way as well. We should not be scared to make investments in life.

Instead of asking “what is the cost of this?” Ask, “What is the cost of not doing this?” It may just be that not spending the money would be worse.

Finding Balance And Flow

Marley works hard. But more impressive is her ability to play hard, and relax as well. We talked about the importance of work, life, and creative balance.

She shares how her goal is a state of flow in life. Can we maintain focus on what our passion currently is, while not overdoing it and burning out?

Not getting caught up in the “have to-do’s” but rather maintaining focus on the get-to-do’s” is a key to life.

As always, we talked about a bunch of fun topics; school; learning for the sake of accomplishing grades and passing tests, vs learning for enjoyment; learning how to learn; divorce, cancer, wellness, grief and creating impact in the time we have on earth.

Tips On Entrepreneurship

At it’s core business is all about relationships, networking and exchanges of value for an agreed upon compensation, whether in partnerships, or in client deals and customers.
Your success all starts with identity, habits and routines. Who are you, who do you want to be and how do those people act, what do they do?
Take yourself to attractive character school (how to create simple, but effective setups for the best quality video creation, how to stand for the brand values that are true to you, how to speak, on camera, or off camera, crafting a message, how to deliver the message in a way that people want to hear more.)
Learn how to live in the moment and enjoy the process of creating your hobby, side hustle, or career. Find excitement in figuring out the path, as opposed to the attainment of the goal.
Study the routines, steps and habits of people who have achieved similar goals already. Create as the unique person you are, but decide what can you steal from them that will help you on your journey.
Choose mentors that already have the thing that you want, whether it’s an accomplishment in the industry or a lifestyle you would like. Learn from them, but also start teaching others to give back.
As far as business systems go, it’s always specific to the situation, but overall, it’s a matter of creating content that is compelling and attracts an audience. Then, generate leads, nurture and support those leads, and a certain percentage will become customers. Fulfill your promise to them, possibly upsell and resell to your best clients by providing more of what they need.
Never try to be someone else. There is so much noise out there we could be tempted to copy someone, but you need to stay true to yourself.
Don’t get distracted by other things you could do. Focus on the things you need to do to be authentically you.
Build trust. Customers make purchase decisions on how much they trust a company or person. People will also be more likely to build collaborative ventures alongside you if there is a foundation of trust.
When we make a mistake in our business and are unable to fulfill a promise for our customers that is up to our standards, effective communication can save the relationship. Have your heart and values in the right place, and be willing to listen, apologize, and offer various solutions.
It’s an individual decision, but if you want to be able to reach the maximum people and impact then you will have to start building a team.
Build a culture of collaborative, extreme ownership within your team. Hold each other accountable and speak openly about failures, but also celebrate the wins and shout people out for doing great things to reinforce positive progress and effort.
Put constant, never ending energy into continuing to improve your ability to solve problems for your clients.

Memorable Quotes

“One of the best things ever, is being able to find your passion and learn to monetize it, without losing the passion and reasons for why you loved it in the first place.”

“How lucky are we today that we can literally turn our hobby into million dollar businesses?”

“You are not going to attract what you want, you are going to attract what comes with who you are.”

“There is always something we can learn, even if it is learning what not to do.”

“New level, new devil.”

“Commitment doesn’t care how you feel.”

Guest Bio

CEO of Jaxx Productions, and Youtube Lead Machine, Marley has 15 years of experience in the field of content marketing and video production.

She is also a highly acclaimed business acceleration coach, speaker and course creator.

From the pages of Forbes to the mainstage at Funnel Hacking Live, Marley works with her clients to discover the power of implementing an Infinite Cashflow System inside each of their businesses, built on effortless high-ticket customer ascension.

In other words, she helps people create content that reaches a target audience effectively, educates them on why they should be a customer, nurtures them to appreciate the solution they are missing, and become a client that has a big, mutual benefit for the business owner and customer to grow the business.

Marley’s roster of clients includes such legendary thought leaders as Cristy Code Red, Alex Charfen, Daymond John, and Stephen Larsen. She’s also shared the stage alongside Russell Brunson, Tony Robbins, Tom Bilyeu, and Frank Kern.

Follow Marley
LinkedIn - marleyjaxx
Instagram - @marleyjaxx
YouTube - @MarleyJaxx
Website - Marleyjaxx.com

7 Powerful Questions To Make Sure We Are Ready To Own Our Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Wed, 1 Feb 2023 14:57:49 +0000

Think of something you want to do. Now, ask why haven’t you started yet? If you were able to take ownership of your decisions, you would be.

So what’s getting in the way?

Many clients I work with, especially teens, feel overwhelmed by the pressure put on them to have a goal in life. The last word they want to hear is “goal-setting”.

But, why is this?

Simply put, many of us aren’t ready to take ownership over our dreams. This happens for a couple reasons.

**For the full written version of the episode see the transcript.

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Want To Die Happier? Why It's Super Important To Own Our Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 11:00:00 +0000

I love this quote from writer, T.S. Eliot:

“Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.”

It's simple to go through life doing things that other people want us to do.

It’s simple, but not easy.

Many of us make decisions, whether we realize it or not, based on the thinking of other people.

This is really common.

So, armed with the knowledge that this is often the case, we should stop and ask ourselves, “is this what I want?”

When it comes to achieving our goals, it’s important to make sure we are ready to own our decisions.

**For the full written version of episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
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Mariam Marks On Becoming A Positive Influencer And How To Succeed As An Artist

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 18:04:26 +0000

Mariam grew millions of followers on social media by creating hilarious, fun-loving content that puts a smile on your face. She paints characters on her face. Using the characters she makes them dance, sing and tell stories across social media.

We talked about painting, monetizing artwork, and life lessons learned along the way.

Mariam was a great painter, but to take on this venture she had to learn. She had to learn how to paint her own face. She had to figure out what styles and supplies worked best. Developing a skincare routine was super important too, given she paints her face a few times per week.

Mariam hardly used social media before, and according to her was not tech savvy at all. But now she is able to create a ton of great content. She is busy, but still manages to pump out videos, with art, edited clips, and sound, while posting to multiple platforms and engaging with her audience.

The necessary evil of growing on socials is well worth it if you can maintain a positive attitude. Along these lines, we talked about dealing with haters, coming up with ideas, and sharing what the audience wants to consume v.s what you want to make.

Seasons Of Life
We actually got talking about life in general. How does one balance life when they are a creator, but also a professional, partner, and parent?

Mariam shares her belief in being open to new possibilities and living with your values as the foundation first. It’s about being in alignment in each season of life.

This is clear in her story. She went from traditional painting on canvas to sharing art online. She also, all of a sudden, became a really popular influencer.

Mariam shares how important it is to try different things. Then, you can see if they are aligned with your values, but also figure out if people are appreciating the work. If you like it and an audience likes it, then you have a match.

It was awesome hearing Mariam open up about these seasons of life we all go through. She has had to face a lot of change in life. Growing up in difficult circumstances that she shares about made her a resilient person.

She was an elite basketball player with many other big dreams. Now, here she is as an online, social media, artist. Mariam is a big believer that it is important we recognize we can shift our identities and recreate ourselves many times. If we have a new project, or goal we need to see ourselves as that new person.

8 Tips On Success As An Artist

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Don’t get discouraged because you think you aren’t good enough, or other people are “better than you”. Art is super subjective, keep going.
There are no rules when it comes to creating. Keep trying various mediums. Combine styles, learn from different role models and over time your style will develop.
When it comes to selling art, remember that people don’t tend to buy, or remember the actual piece. In most cases, they are buying from a person they connect with.
Be willing to create more of what your audience wants. This only happens when you get to know your community and craft something they will love. Balance what you want to create with what they want you to create.
Avoid burnout by managing expectations and priorities often. Shoot for the moon, but recognize that we are human and we need to find some way to be healthy and get rest. Push yourself, your skills, and your marketing. But not too hard. Only do what you can easily recover from by tomorrow.
Re-evaluate your habits and actions. Check-in with your time management, your overall goal, and how much your daily actions map toward the big goal. A few times a year, decide if you should slow down, speed up, or pivot.
Continue to build leverage you own by growing on social media, and creating a website, vlog, blog, or podcast.
To monetize it takes consistent brand building combined with research and empathy. Always be thinking of different ways that you can make money and try one at a time. Ads, sponsorships, books, courses, downloads, cameos, birthdays, paintings, prints, freelance, paint by number, puzzles, clothing, NFT’s, murals, etc. Once you have a sustainable income stream that’s automated, start trying another.

Memorable Quotes

“When you work on something, the joy in life is in progress. So you want to feel like you're progressing. You don't want the same thing over and over again.”

“Don’t put yourself in a box. It's okay to try a bunch of things until something catches traction and sits well with you. If it’s something you would love to make money doing, ask how can I create a brand for this?”

“Something you do in art is called a concentration. I like to look at each stage of life, like it is my current concentration. This is the medium I am focused on, but I can change it at any moment.”

“Most people are not going to pay $4,500 for a painting, but they might pay $65 for a print about the same size. So figuring out what works for different people in your audience and serving their needs is important.”

Follow Mariam

YouTube @MariamMarks

TikTok @mariamsfunbunch

Instagram mariammarksart

15 Things Stealing Self-Control Inspired By GaryVee's Most Powerful Quote

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 11:00:00 +0000

For the longest time, I pursued goals because I thought they were the right things to chase, not really knowing if I personally, truly believed in them.

I quit working in the fitness industry to pursue a career as a teacher.

I did my Masters in Educational Leadership & Learning.

I climbed the ladder of formal rewards to become a Principal in schools.

While I’m grateful for many of these accomplishments, in each of them there was an element of “this is what I am supposed to do”.

It wasn’t until I was well into creating the Just Keep Learning Podcast that I realized how different it feels to pursue the goal that I personally am driven by.

And I want that exact same feeling for you.

In order to have that exact same feeling though, it can help to understand a bit about why we may not be in control in the first place.

**For the full written version of episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
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LinkedIn - Justin

4 Gas Tanks To Fuel Your Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 10:00:00 +0000

To be clear on our big dreams, we need to know where we are in four main areas.

These are like gas tanks for our goals. We want to keep them as full as possible.

Once we’re all fueled up we can decide where we want to go.

**For the full written version of episode see the transcript.

FOLLOW Justin
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If Chasing Big Dreams Is Easy, Then What Gets In Our Way?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Do you know your big dream?

If you know your big dream then you’re getting somewhere.

But are you certain?

If you don’t know your big dream, then the first step before goal setting, planning, and productivity, should be to figure it out.

The first step to figure it out is to understand what might be getting in the way.

Once we are aware of our dreamblockers and make progress towards eliminating them we can take the steps toward figuring out our big dream.

FOLLOW Justin
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Benjamin Alan On Life As A Creative And How To Succeed As A Musician

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Benjamin Alan, Ben Alan) — Mon, 9 Jan 2023 22:35:58 +0000

Benjamin Allen only started sharing his music since COVID. In the last few years he’s grown a pretty large audience of loyal fans who love his music. In this episode, we talk about how to be effective creating music, the mindset, and the lifestyle that must exist around it when it’s not your full-time gig (yet).

We hear how Ben got into music in the first place as a youngster. He is one of those musically inclined people, who always appreciated the art, but never really took it seriously. He found success as a competitive goalie in hockey, but mid way through the teen years decided music was the greater passion.

Ben shares a behind the scenes glimpse into his personal development, fitness routines and wellness. A big part of his wisdom comes from the need to juggle making enough money to pay the bills while still pursuing music with enough momentum and consistency.

We chatted about dealing with haters and building personal confidence. It’s so important as a foundation for new musicians to be able to stand in their own self-esteem. This can also be helped by surrounding yourself with good people.

We heard all about how Ben looks at song writing. He gives us a great rundown of his own music production. We get to hear from mindset, to idea, to creating, editing and publishing, all of the steps he takes to create an album.

15 Things To Think About If You Want To Become A Singer

Listen to a lot of music, from multiple genres. Some just for enjoyment and to get the vibe, but also to identify song structure, and learn to recognize different elements that appear in songs.
Focus on songwriting. Even though production can make something, almost anyone sound great, it’s still the actual song that is most important. Focus on writing things that resonate with your audience and always work to get better at songwriting.
The most important element of writing the song is creating relatability and connection with the listener. They should be able to use the themes, but put their own people, experiences and emotions into the story.
Songwriting success is a lot about repetitions, you just have to write your first one hundred songs as quickly as possible, listen to and read other songs, but most importantly write as much as you can, read them back and continue to improve.
When it’s time to sit down and create, make, or get an instrumental and then hum different melodies over top of it, and once you find a rythm that sounds good, start adding words to it, especially finishing words that you might want to rhyme.
The most important part of a song is the melody. You can create a song, and people might know zero of the words, but if they get the melody stuck in their head it can still be memorable.
From those first lyrics and energy a concept, themes, and story will then develop.
You’ll learn bars, song structure, and chord progressions over time, but essentially most songs will fit a similar structure of 8 bars for a verse, 4 bars pre-chorus and 8 bars for the chorus.
Steal like an artist by studying what others have done that works, appreciating what you connect with and borrowing ideas that you then make original.
Always writing to instrumental, even when you’re coming up with ideas can be helpful because it keeps you cautious of the number of syllables and phrases you can fit into your song.
You don’t need a fancy studio to be successful. You can add pieces to the production over time, as you make money invest in your instruments, software and tech that will help you create. But people can make good music from a phone, or tablet these days and improve equipment and spaces over time. In fact, it’s probably best to scale your gear with your creativity and abilities, because it will be a better fit as you continue to level up.
The basic equipment you should start with is a device that can run a digital audio workspace such as GarageBand, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, or any of the others depending on your budget. If you are recording vocals you will want a half decent microphone, but just as important understand a little bit about the acoustics of the room you record in. The microphone can be plug and play, for under a couple hundred dollars to start.
Once you have a song you are happy with, similar to a podcast these days, if you would like to share it across many different streaming services, then it’s best to use a distribution service that will send your track out to all of the different platforms.
When it comes to marketing your music, it’s important to create a community. It’s also really helpful to make micro content, clips and shorts that could go viral. Share the melody, parts of the hook, snippets from your lyrics, as well as behind the scenes making it and the meaning of the track as much as possible.
Pre-saves and downloads on day one are also huge for artists. The more your audience hops on a track before and right at the time of release, the more momentum it gives the algorithm and the more a streaming service will help serve your song to new audiences for you.

Memorable Quotes

“That’s all you can really do in this industry, you just gotta learn as you go.”

“Music and sport have the same overlap benefit for me. In both of them, when you’re playing sports, or making music, it’s the only thing you can focus on at that time, so it’s really a form of therapy.”

“There’s never been a better time to be an independent musician. But there’s also never been as much competition. So it’s kind of like a double-edged sword.”

“Every artist steals. You kind of have to copy what other, similar creators are doing, but make the work original and your own.”

“If you want to get into music, you just have to start, realize it is never going to be perfect, and that goes for people who have been at it a long time too, you have to keep going.”

Follow Benjamin

Instagram - @itsbenjaminalan
TikTok - @benjaminalan
Youtube - benjaminalan

Reach out anytime! Text your questions to JustTries at +1 (313) 710-5499

Is Picking Your Passion Bad Advice?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 10:00:00 +0000

To summarize, it’s important to pursue our passion. It may be for money, it may be for fun, or an ever changing combination of the two, it might be for 5 minutes a day, or ten hours, but make sure you are pursuing it. Make your career decisions based on what you feel gives you the greatest advantage in a literal sense as well, at least, just find a way to pay the bills so to speak. Now, way, way, way more important than passion, or work is the pursuit of meaning.

Most of us go about life without intention and clarity about what gives us true MEANING. Now I could talk through it with you, but I can’t figure it out for you. Remember, it’s an individual experience and an organic, evolving one, hah, sort of like a maze as we talked about in the most recent solo episode. Go back and give that a listen if you feel frustrated. But, either way the best thing we can do is ask questions, make decisions, and ask more questions. You will never know what brings you the most meaning until you start asking:

Are you working on a project that motivates you?
Do you engage with a group that you enjoy collaborating with?
Does your work, in some way(s) serve others?
Do you have to persevere and solve challenging problems?

FOLLOW Justin
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Brianna On Singing, Podcasting and Building Bamby Media

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:40:23 +0000

Brianna Ansaldo is an audio, music and podcasting genius. Shes share her experience through this life journey. Brianna went from learning guitar as a little kid, creating music, becoming a singer, editing audio, and eventually podcasting. Even though podcasting came later, she was always into the audio world, right from when she was a little kid. She now owns a podcast production and marketing company called Bamby Media.

Brianna, known also as her company name Bamby Media, explained how being a creative person is a lifelong journey. It is ok to switch mediums. It is ok to take a break. Following your intuition and giving yourself permission to make what you want to make, when you want to make it is underrated.

One of Brianna’s strengths is understanding that we should not overthink. Instead, build systems, or habits that allow you to have little creative bursts throughout your day. Focus on the inputs, what you do, the actions you take.

If you focus on results you can be persuaded from doing the things you truly love. Or the things that are more in line with your values and desires. By focusing on what we do, how we do it and above all why we do it, all things that we can decide, we are able to create with more vitality.

Audio Masterclasses

Brianna shared some great insight for those wondering how to become a singer. She gave us honestly a mini masterclass in how to start singing and pursue that dream. She shares some tips on how anyone can get good at singing at any age if they want to.

She is multi passionate, so we took the opportunity to discuss a bit about each of her skills. Entrepreneurship, freelancing, how to make money for yourself, and building her own successful business, dealing with it growing and still finding balance were all important themes.

Brianna never gives in to excuses. She multitasked as a new mom, lives away from family, and had a busy husband. But, she simply decided that she wanted the goal of podcasting and entrepreneurship enough to get it done no matter what.

We talked about this time management and building a business during nap cycles as she put it. How do we pursue our big dreams when we have so many other responsibilities? Clearly it worked out as her partner actually left being a doctor to come work together on the Bamby Media brand.

Naturally, we talked a lot about podcasting. She is definitely an expert in everything from creation, production, to distribution, marketing and monetization. So we talked podcasting for quite a while. One of the most interesting topics was the metrics you can expect with a brand new show and how to grow.

10 Things To Think About When Starting Music Or Singing

When starting to sing, focus on the breath, posture and warm up exercises making sure our facial bones are in a healthy position and that our diaphragm is effective is half the battle
Practice with drills, because repetition will help you intrinsically understand your vocal range, how high and how low can you make sounds, and what it feels like to sing from a more intuitive, deeper understanding that will hold up under pressure, or nerves.
It’s all about a willingness to be patient, to look stupid, to try and fail, but learn and keep going.
Once you feel like you understand the basic concept of singing a great way to practice can be to make a list of your favourite songs you’d like to sing, use a music player, with headphones on and practice singing them, progress to having half headphones on and then finally taking headphones off. Don’t stay attached to one song for long, be sure to practice with various songs at the same time.
To start songwriting, practice writing poetry because it doesn’t have to be attached to music, or limited by bars. It can be so helpful to explore short form storytelling, when do you want something to rhyme?
Don’t be attached to an outcome. Perfectionism will creep in if you worry about how something will sound, or what people will think. Don’t limit your creativity. Get good at noticing things and create from a place of genuine curiosity.
Once you can write in general, shift some of your activity to creating some simple chord progressions on instruments like guitar, piano, or humming and while you create a beat in your head, start to think of themes that come to mind, topics you could write about and then slowly start adding words to compliment the melody and turn poetry into song.
There are many benefits to singing, songwriting and creating music as a hobby, however as a career, it can be very difficult to succeed. If you want to have it be a career, you should be so passionate about it that you can’t imagine yourself doing anything else. You also, depending on financial situation may need to make a lot of sacrifice and find ways to pay bills while you continue to put in the work.
If you do want this to be an actual career, then you have to learn to market your music. Beyond improving your skills and creating good songs you need to learn to put yourself out there often and continually create in a way that builds your audience.
Remember that confidence is most of the battle once you are beyond the basics. Continue to be brave, build confidence and don’t give up.

11 Tips For Starting Your Own Podcast

What are some similar shows that you appreciate that you would model your work after?
Do some market research to make sure that people are interested in this topic. You can create an entirely brand heavy, unique show, but that is much more difficult than validating the idea by seeing if people search for this, or if other shows already successfully create on that topic.
What are the themes, topics and styles that will be the foundation for your show? How is your show better, or unique in comparison to shows that already exist?
Your marketing strategy should be individualized, but in general, if you choose to create a show with a well searched for topic, then you can use strategies like SEO and partnerships with other shows to get on their episodes and cross promote, as well as connecting with direct audience to share and partner with. If the show is less specific and more general without a clear topic, then strategies can be more about creating micro content for social media, advertising the show, optimizing keywords for search engines and getting on similar shows, or blogs so people find your show through a similar audience, community, or group.
When it comes to social media, you should appear on the major platforms, post if you can, but always have a primary platform. Test out the different platforms to see where you show up best. Where do you connect with an audience best, where does your audience appreciate your content most and which platform do you prefer to create for? Focus 80% of your resources there to grow.
When it comes the micro marketing it is helpful to create good assets, effective micro clips and posts that can be shared. It’s about finding a balance between quality and quantity, consistency and virality. Use effective hashtags, join communities that appreciate your posts and continue to produce a great show while you share it as much as possible.
Decide how you are going to record your show. What equipment do you have access to? Decide on a recording platform free like zoom, or paid like squadcast. Ideally you will capture audio and video so that you have access to clips that can be shared. Practice setting up and recording. Solve any problems with creating your first episode.
Choose an uploading platform that will create your RSS feed and ship it out to all of the major podcast directory and distribution sites.
Don’t overthink the external brand elements like a logo, colours, mission and design. That can come later, it will naturally evolve and develop with the show’s growth.
Who you deliver to, what you deliver, how you deliver can pivot and evolve over time, so don’t be too attached to specific people, or content, be open to a gut feeling and intuition, but keep going.

When it comes to monetization it is an individual journey based on goals and values. It makes sense to build to 5-10,000 downloads per episode and then partner with specific, niche brand deals, or sponsorhips, as opposed to making small amounts of money on cheap ads from day one. You can also sell your own products and services to guest, and or audience members.

Memorable Quotes

“If you want to be creative, you need to give yourself space to be creative.”

“ Never be attached to an outcome.”

“It was really me deciding, I want this enough. So I am going to create time and space that I get it done.”

“You get there. But, it is a journey.”

“My biggest driving force in life is asking if I am having fun and if I’m not, then what can I borrow from my way of living in childhood that can make mu life more fun now?”

“We are all leaving a legacy, so be conscious of others and the impact you make on others.”

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Reach out anytime! Text your questions to JustTries at +1 (313) 710-5499

Walk In Your Own Maze

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 11:00:00 +0000

In today’s episode, inspired by music lyrics, I’ll tell you about the importance of mazes in our life, a funny story of taking a kiddo in a wheelchair through an outdoor maze, how it taught me a lot about goals and how we can learn to be even better at getting out of mazes.

There are many tools that help us learn to live a good life. Some are more obvious, but others are a bit hidden. I find song lyrics is one of those sneaky tools that can teach us a lot about life. Pay attention to the words from great songwriters and see what they mean to you. You’ll have no choice but to reflect and think from time to time.

Within 24 hours I heard two songs that used lines about mazes, John Mayer’s, Daughters: “just like a maze, where all of the walls all continually change”. And Mac Miller’s Ladders: “Maybe we inside the maze, somehow we gotta find a way, no matter how many miles it takes”

This really reminded me that life goals are an evolving maze for all of us. Not too many variables tend to stay the same. These changes and ever-evolving challenges don’t need to be stressful. A maze can be a lot of fun if we treat it like a game the way we do as kids.

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Forgive And Apologize Fast

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 13:32:37 +0000

In this episode, we will hear some amazing poetry from one of my favorite poets (sidenote: please be sure to go support his work) and we will learn why both apologizing and forgiving should happen quickly if we want to achieve our goals.

One of my favorite poems, called “how to be a person” by Shane Koyczan states this beautifully. We'll hear a little piece of this poem and I'll share my own learning about forgiveness and apologizing. Why it's important and how we can get better at both.

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Daniel Mate On Musical Theatre, Myth Of Normal And Living Your Best Life

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Daniel Mate) — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:38:32 +0000

Daniel believes strongly that we are all naturally creative, compassionate, committed, and highly capable creators.

He does many things, and at the heart of his goals and passion is musical theatre. He gave us a mini masterclass about storytelling through music. He didn’t find it cool as a kid, but perhaps because he didn’t “get it” at that point. It would be cool to see kids appreciate theatre from a young age, like any other creative medium, singing, dance, filmmaking.

Daniel is a refreshing creative, because he doesn’t just follow the norms online. We talked about coming to terms with being a multi passionate person, versus having a single niche. He gives some great advice for people struggling with this challenge of being multi passionate.

We are all just one person. But that one person can have many ideas and interests. Once Daniel found a connection between his passions, a throughline, he was able to live with more calm and coherence. This connection comes from defining the underlying meaning, or calling is. Make your meaning your foundation that all of your interests sit on top of.

We are creatives because we have stories to tell. It’s fun to have all of the accomplishments too. Results can be amazing, but only if the passion and purpose are there first. In that way we can work on a project for 18 years with no fame, or fortune because it was a life raft for our own mental health.

There were a few topics that are tough to discuss, but provide a tiny silver lining. Death, illness, addiction, social media, influencers and capitalism all came up.

Daniel understands that in many ways capitalism ruins things. We talked about the dark side of social media, sharing our messages and how inhumane our marketing can be. Turning humans and our relationships into commodities. Companies profit by providing the addictive properties of social media that can make us do crazy things for a like. Yet, we can connect with each other through social media for relationships and a good causes.

A fascinating and important topic was neuro-marketing, especially to children. It’s scary how many big brands and gurus market specifically to kids and teens to take advantage of the vulnerability of their minds. Yet, if we want to spread an incredible message like a new book we have that can help a lot of people, marketing is the path to have it spread.

Another incredibly sad, yet hopeful part of our conversation was about autoimmune disease, addiction and the myth of normal. The myth of normal is the title of Daniel, and his father Gabor’s best-selling book.

We discussed the real world challenges of scaling important messages such as normalizing illness in our body, or mind and how illness should not be normalized. How we as a society misunderstand, and disrespect the developmental needs of our children in favour of a toxic environment. In many ways humans confuse “normal” with natural and this keeps us sick emotionally, physically, and socially. Mainstream medicine, big companies, they aren’t going to be part of the solution. So we need to take it upon ourselves to figure out what should be our normal?

We also had a more lighthearted brainstorm about the similarities between Jordan Peterson and his dad, Gabor. How do people become fans of both personalities when on the surface they have such different views?

At the root of this a conversation is really the importance of doctors and health care practictioners working to share the truth. That our mindbody exist together, not separate. That our illnesses are a product of a cumuluative, contextual environment and that we need to keep learning to fight the ego of institutions. Regardless of our differences, we need to support each other in creating a less toxic environment.

One of the throughlines in the foundation of David’s work is his ability to simply live a good life. Perhaps, through his mentoring, he is even better at achieving this for others and so we talked about some of the tools and concepts he would recommend people do to live a healthy, happy life.

6 Tips For Living Your Best Life

Learn to suffer well. Don’t prolong suffering, but don’t deny it either. Everyone of us, in having a human experience will have moments of suffering. Instead of asking “why” we need to shift our thinking to squeezing the wisdom from it. What can we learn from this? How can I grow from this?
Don’t believe everything you are told, or even think. Be a critical thinker. Question everything. Realize you are the one making meaning out of your life. We all see ourselves and our story with a virtual reality helmet on, but it’s important to allow that helmet to crack, let some light in, change the way we see things as we become more and more enlightened and make personal changes accordingly.
Context matters more than content. Any details, facts and stories can be viewed from different perspectives. Two people with very similar circumstances, or results can have entirely different experiences, positive, or negative, depending on the context, the frame they put around it.
Don’t live with unconscious blinders on. Self reflect by removing the blinders and look at personal evidence of how you are creating your life. Be willing to have your heart broken, be willing to have life tenderize and season you by learning from all of the little difficult, or challenging, or positive moments, be willing to give up your own belief systems, or plans and grow through your experiences.
Accept all of the given circumstances of your life. You don’t have to tolerate them. They don’t have to define you. But, you do have to accept them. They do exist, and not excepting them can hold you back.
Put your attention to your intention. What are you here to do? Why are you here to do it? and then decide, what are you going to do? Put this question to something bigger than you, God, angels, the universe, the stars, whatever you believe in and ask in a genuinely curious way.

Memorable Quotes

“ Lyrics are bound in time by the music and line length, you need to be efficient in summarizing your story. You don’t get to spout off for pages of free writing.”

“Art and commerce don’t necessarily mix. They don’t always have anything to do with each other. Except once you create art and it’s time to put it out into the world.”

“Why do you want to influence people? What kind of influencer do you want to be? Hitler was an influencer.”

“We don’t need more content. We need more context.”

“You can’t put an elephant on top of a mountain and have it survive, human beings are very adaptable, we can survive in all kinds of scenarios, but one of the curses of that is we can get used to things that are not good for us.”

“If normal is a myth, then abnormal is also a myth. People who are mentally ill, people who have chronic illness, people fight addiction. We are all people.”

Guest Bio
Daniel Mate is a composer, lyricist, author and playwright based from BC, Canad, living in New York. He graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing. He also holds a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy from McGill.

While his main professional love have been music and theatre, Daniel defines the term multipassionate. He runs the world’s only “mental chiropractic” service, Take A Walk With Daniel. He is also co-authoring two books with his father Dr. Gabor Maté, is developing a podcast and runs a youtube channel.

Daniel is also an educator. He has supported many musical theatre organizations as a teacher. He also volunteers to work on original song writing and recording with children and youth in elementary, highschool and various therapeutic treatment settings. He runs workshops on mental health, the myth of normal, musical theatre, writing, and recording.

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Reach out anytime! Text your questions to JustTries at +1 (313) 710-5499

Why So Serious

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 8 Dec 2022 14:17:16 +0000

If we are to achieve our goals we will be able to live in a state of abundance much of the time. Even the greatest of thinking minds can find themselves in a pity party. But most of them are pretty good at getting out of it. One way I find helpful is to appreciate how miniscule I am in the grand scheme of things. Appreciating that if we attend a football game we are just one of 100,000 people in that venue, that the earth itself, let alone me is a teeny tiny speck on the universe reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

Check out this episode, or the episode transcript to learn how Van Wilder and The JOKER can teach us a lot about life.

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Huw Davies On Financial Freedom, Business And Social Media

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, huw davies) — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 13:59:30 +0000

Huw Davies tried many different traditional jobs and while he gained experience with each one he never found the work he wanted to do for life. This was especially clear when the manager he aspired to be like told him that he will end up stuck doing work he would rather not do if he kept on that path.

Huw literally searched ‘how to make money online’ and came across a ton of different side hustle ideas. He tried selling on EBay, investing, flipping, and eventually found some success with selling digital books.

Huw created a crazy and inspiring schedule to help him keep his day job and build security on the side. He was getting up at 5 Am, putting in work on e-books until he had to head to work and spent every break and evening he could writing. In the first year he managed to create over sixty books. Between these products and his investing he had financial promise. At this point his day job started getting in the way.

As he discovered the FIRE (financial independence retire early) community and knew he was making some reasonable solo income he decided to go all in as an entrepreneur. The important thing Huw did was ensure he had some financial success starting to scale, reduced expenses and stayed productive when it came to creating money making opportunities that allowed him to increase his investments over time.

We got into talking about death and how powerful its reminders can be. There is a certain part of society that focuses so much on pension, retirement and future living. But what happens if we don’t make it there? At the same time we need to be able to pay bills, and fulfill certain duties, so how do we strike a balance and live our best life now?

Huw shared quite a bit about his path to early retirement. We heard about stock selection compared to index funds, building passive income and the wisdom that anyone can apply to become financially free. Most of it is common sense, but really clear and quite possible for the majority of people.

One of the most interesting conversations was about minimalism. Both mental and physical clutter can bring about so much more stress and anxiety than necessary. Huw shared his resources for learning how to be more minimalist and how he applies it. The real truth is taking things away actually adds to our life if we do it right.

Clear evidence of growth mindset was a big part of this episode. I really appreciated how Huw shared the fact that he never saw himself as creative. He did an exercise at work where he ranked not only lowest of everyone at his company in terms of creative ability, but he actually scored a negative. Yet, he now creates content for a living and has really developed many creative strengths.

Lost in all of this potentially is how many incredible tips Huw gives when it comes to being a content creator. He told us how little experience he had. He told us how he was introverted and struggled with comfort on camera. He shared the fact that as his platforms grew he received more and more hate. What is very clear though is that he is good at growing a following, so his ideas were very helpful.

So much edutainment. How to build creative confidence and become a content creator. How to retire early with financial freedom and how to be a successful entrepreneur. How to use grief, death and the challenges of life to make us better, not worse.

9 Tips For Financial Freedom

In any endeavor, you can find people who have accomplished what you want to accomplish and model your efforts after them. Learn from them. Read books, take course, and network with them if you can.
Try side hustles. There are hundred of great ideas. But pick one, or pick a few and narrow it down to one. Once you pick one, go all in as much as you can in your spare time.
If you can, focus on some of your passions that could be monetizable. Look at the insight of Ikigai and combine your interests with something the world needs.
Realize it’s ok if you are bad with money. I was terrible with money. But that’s when it’s really important to start learning about how to grow true wealth. Be open to learning and improving your money mindset, whether it’s making more, saving more effectively, or investing.
Learn from the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) community about how to grow your wealth and find financial freedom. Being part of a community of people making this effort can be really motivating.
Learn to love delayed gratification. Nothing worthwhile will be accomplished overnight. So you might as well enjoy the process of really hard work and figuring it out while the results are still far away. But, remember that it is going to pay off.
When it comes to investing focus on index funds, something that combines a bunch of steady and stable, yet growing companies. Not specific, single stock selection. Investing in markets should be a very long term play.
Build a budget based off of your needs, not your wants. Continue to find ways that you can reduce spending and increase income.
Appreciate that if you succeed in retiring early you are not just one of the lucky ones, but it will be because you did not give up. The majority of people just give up because it becomes too much work. So expect to feel like giving up, but be ready to build habits to help you push on.

Memorable Quotes

“Death is shit. But, it’s one of life’s most powerful teachers. It gives you the power to remember to live for the moment and do that thing you want to do.”

“I’ll work my tits off and be very uncomfortable from delayed gratification, because I know how great I will feel afterwards and I realize now, that I am the weird one.”

“The goal of life is to try to close the gap between who you are and what your potential is, and you’ll never, ever reach it, but the pursuit of it will give you true fulfillment in life.”

“When you start to chase luxuries, there is no end.”

“I die, or I get to a million subscribers. So only two things could happen there.”

Guest Bio

Huw Davies became financially independent in 2016. Since then he has built an impressive investing portfolio, both in traditional stocks and real estate.

Huw is an entrepreneur who is currently growing his social audience. He uploads weekly videos about life topics such as business, wealth, and personal development.

Huw struggled with his weight, health and money. But life turned around when he focused on his finances. From budgeting, to growing income and re-investing with a FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) mindset he was able to get out of his 9-5 mentality and technically retire within ten years of setting that goal.

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Reach out anytime! Text your questions to JustTries at +1 (313) 710-5499

Design Your Life

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 1 Dec 2022 14:01:30 +0000

You can design your life, or at least parts of your life based on design thinking. The idea is simple, rather than going through life like a tumbleweed being blown around by the wind, going wherever life takes you, you design aspects of your life. In this episode we’ll look at two things, what is design thinking? And how can we apply it to design our life?

Check out this episode, or the episode transcript to learn what design thinking is and how you apply it to make your life better!

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The “P” Philosophy Of A Learning Mindset

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Are you a dreamer, or an overthinker? Then understanding the "Philosophy Of The Negative And Positive P’s" will really help you build momentum. It will help you make progress toward things that actually matter to you, instead of all the fluff we could get focused on.

It often seems that there just isn’t enough time to accomplish what we want in life. That’s because it’s true. The reality is, if we are any bit of a dreamer or thinker, it will never happen. It is impossible to do everything we dream of since ideas are infinite. Yet, we have a very finite amount of time.

For every one of us, our window of opportunity is bound by mortality. We have an individualized number of minutes to create what matters to us. The craziest part is that we know it is one specific amount of time, but we don’t even know how much time it is. If we attempt to “manage” this time, we will live in a constant state of worry over how much we have.

Check out this episode, or the episode transcript to learn all about the helpful and hurtful P's.

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Learning Is Healthy

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 13:34:07 +0000

Laughter is a good medicine, but learning is even better. Learning isn’t just fun. It can serve a powerful purpose. Today we’ll appreciate a bit more how learning can have an impact on both physical and mental health.

To oversimplify, learning in the macro of our lives is good for us. It is healthy. We'll talk about the fact that learning can actually help us be physically healthier and share a couple books, The Myth of Normal & The Big Leap that help us appreciate this mind-body, learning connection.

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Cara Ricketts On Acting, Web3 And Lifelong Creativity

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Cara Ricketts) — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 18:17:37 +0000

Cara grew up in the GTA of Canada, with a mother who really looked out for her well being. She was almost “overprotective”, but a game changer in her life when it came to helping her believe in her dreams and goals.

Speaking of those goals, she is a successful actor and this started when another role model became a big influence in her life. She had a teacher see something special in her ability to act and helped her get started.

We touched on some heartfelt topics about being able to integrate as creatives and some of the history of racism in the culture of creating content, such as Shakespeare. It was so fun to think that the real goal should be to come together to share creative experiences.

Lifelong Learning As A Creative
Cara is an intelligent and curious creative. Most importantly she loves to learn. She has a skillset beyond acting, as she also creates in spatial computing, music, NFTS and social media content.

We often get in our own way when it comes to being an artist because we try to stay in our own lane. She shares a very healthy mindset when it comes to this because she never stopped learning new ways to be creative.

Cara shared what it’s like to have fans, and a reputation as an actor. She also broke down the difference between video game, theatre and acting on camera.

If you are someone with an interest in acting, then her tips will definitely be both entertaining and helpful.

15 Things We Learned About Acting

Definitely the number one tip is practice a lot. Just keep practicing in whatever way, or combination of methods that you like.
As an actor you are running a business. If you are going to be successful, you are selling yourself and selling your art.
There are fewer and fewer gatekeepers, so don’t wait for permission to create. If you don’t have a current project, you can film something yourself, or with a group, that could become a feature, but no matter what will allow you to practice.
Never stop improving. Acting is different than writing, or painting. You can’t create start to finish on your own and sell your product. As an actor, this will sound bad, but it’s a reality. You are a tool, to be used as a part of a bigger project. Remembering to be a tool that people want to use more and more will help you stay humble and achieve more opportunities.
Networking is often underrated. The ability to be on people’s radar when they are casting, or putting together a project is valuable. It also helps that all stakeholders enjoy working with you. The more enjoyable you are to work with, as long as your art is good, the more work you’ll have.
Build a community, or group of like minded, similar level creators to grow together with. Mentor, ask questions, solve problems and bounce ideas off of each other.
Read scripts if you are serious about acting. This will help you learn to read what is trying to be conveyed in the writing. You will feel more comfortable connecting lines to the story, as well as memorization and comparing projects in general.
Theatre is supposed to be a moment that you create, and then it’s gone. Theatre is awesome because you can feel energy while creating in a theatre, and a live audience lends itself to all kinds of actual reactions of 100’s of people in the same moment, like gasping, or crying. You don’t get that in film.
In any live acting scenario, such as theatre, you can not fake knowing how to act. You have to know your lines, or be solid at improv, you have to know how to position yourself, and use your voice effectively. But, all of these things can be manipulated and supported when making a movie.
In film, that’s different than theatre however, you will move people and have an impact, but they will experience that more privately, on any timeline, and then you may, or may not hear about it. They might reach out to say thank you about a project you shot seven years ago that they just watched.
In movie making, if you have a strong story, director, director of photography, cinematographer and editor, then you don’t need good acting to create a powerful scene. This is why you can add a celebrity, or model to a movie, even if they have little experience and skills, and the shot will be fine. That is not the case with theatre.
Sometimes a trained actor may over act, in which case it may be better to fill the role with a non-actor, just anyone random, but at the same time this can be a valuable lesson for seasoned actors to not try too hard to make something specific happen. Just know your objective and be more real.
As a video game actor, it is unique as well because people feel they get to know you on a far deeper level, if they are playing you, or competing against you in a game, and so they form strong emotional connections and opinions. Some people hate you and some people love you.
Books, resources, coaching, courses, it all can help. You don’t need it, but if you are serious about your craft, it could definitely help.
Give your script, or lines a scaffold for you to anchor to. This is especially important in theatre when you need to be able to recreate a character, or a scene for eighty days in a row. But, it goes for all acting. Don’t just try and remember words, remember the real objective of each moment in ways that you personally connect with.

Memorable Quotes
“There are never any real answers. There are answers that will work for a period of time, there are ones that make sense for a bit. But, there are no right answers.”

“Don’t wait, network. Create with others. If you want to make movies, if you want to make plays, or you want to write a story, get a group together and create.”

“You can’t successfully produce unless you have a community to do that with.”

“It’s your privilege that allows you to not see the race.”

“We all are human. We're just having our own interesting journeys.”

Guest Bio
Cara is an award winning actress, artist, director and producer. She has been working in the field of entertainment professionally since 2007, and spatial computing since 2016.

As an actor, she is best known for The Homecoming, Anne With An E, The Resident and the video game, Far Cry. She has also had success in the theatre and music.

She is going deeper into the study and building of Web3. Currently she works with Fame Lady Squad, Metacitizen, Indie Village in Decentraland and advising people on NFTs and Metaverse concepts.

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Develop An Abundant, Creator Mindset

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 19:41:41 +0000

Vitality is needed to dream big. In the last episode, we defined mindfulness and shared 21 quick mindfulness activities you could implement right away to help you live with more vitality.

I wanted to start with that because it was actionable from day one. But understanding more about your mindset shift is really helpful to make large, lasting changes.

So today we will dive a bit deeper into the science that helps us make a deeper mindset shift and hear some quick clips from a few gurus in the mindset space that really helps explain what I’m saying.

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What Is Mindfulness And How Can You Get Started?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 21:38:41 +0000

From today’s episode, you’ll learn why mindfulness is valuable, what it is and 21 simple mindful activities you could start right away. It’s important to point out that one should learn the science behind shifting your mindset, as well as more advanced meditation techniques, but I wanted to start with the most actionable stuff first.

We can take a look at those elements in future episodes. Aright, mindfulness, here we go! What is it? How do you achieve it? Why does it matter? And what is one way to be successful in building mindfulness habits?

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Ryan Sullivan On A Creative Career In Hip Hop And Podcasting

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, SullyBop, Ryan Sullivan) — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Ryan Aka Sully Bop is a business owner, audio engineer, producer, rapper, DJ and podcast expert. While he is really multi-passionate, his monetized activities all revolve around sound, audio and voice.

We get to hear all about the journey and thought process behind getting into things like rap and podcasting. Both mediums were new to him, but he connected with them immediately. From there he found a way to have both podcasting, and hip hop be things that he does for fun, as a passion, but also as a professional.

So we talked about making hip hop music, and podcast production. Listening to Ryan share his stance on podcasting fundamentals was really valuable. Anyone wanting to start, or re-brand a podcast would benefit from these ideas. One of the sneaky tips that can help a lot was to outsource things you don’t enjoy as soon as possible.

Ryan shared a bit about improving your audio and how to succeed as a hip hop artist. It was fun hearing about how he got into that medium a little later in life. It was also really helpful to learn about his workflow in that area because people struggle with the question, how do I get started?

 We talked a fair bit about the philosophy of life in general. Particularly around the notion that you can’t get time back. Ryan also brought up a good point that our mindset around time, money and environment is very much related to how we were raised. Overcoming barriers to be able to build wealth of time, and wealth financially is well worth it.

Ryan shared some of his insight into the world of business as well. We learned about the business model he created to help other people start podcasts. It was quite the shift he made, which really came down to shifting his personality at the same time. He shares some insight into role models he looks up to, how he learns and the goals he has for the future.

16 Things That Will Help You As A HipHop Artist, Podcaster, Or Both

Always, always, always start with a solid “why”. If you know why you are doing this, you will be less likely to give up.
Creative success is a lot of work, and a long term commitment. Even if you outsource most elements, there will be times when it feels like too much.
Build systems and habits that help you enjoy the process and stick to producing and publishing, even in difficult, or busy times.
Don’t expect pro results with amateur execution. Of course it won’t be perfect at the beginning. But it’s a medium that takes so much time and energy, you might as well be as professional as possible from the beginning and just keep improving.
Outsource things as soon as possible. Decide the main thing you don’t like doing and hire someone to do that for you as soon as you can. And then outsource the next things asap.
Focus on your mindset. You must believe your work is having an impact. If you only look at early data you might think it’s not succeeding. But it’s a chicken and egg problem because you have to believe it’s being impactful first.
Have a positive perspective. Create because you love it. So long as it is having an impact on one person, it is worth it. If one person tunes in and has their life changed, then your show is a success.
The tools don’t matter. Your workflow will evolve. There are so many great tools from free, all the way to very expensive. But there is no one best recording platform, digital audio workspace, or microphone. Figure out the package that works from you and if something no longer works, try another one.
Set micro and macro goals to work toward, but don’t worry about the results. It’s quite easy to get into top 10% of creators in the world. Anything beyond that will take a lot of patience, work and falling in love with the actual journey.
There are many ways to build an audience and all of them can work. For marketing, you can look at what worked for others and copy that. But you truly need to figure out what works for you and then double and triple that.
There are many ways to monetize, but don’t worry about that at first. It’s the same as business, you need traffic, or in this case an audience and then doors will open to make money. Much like marketing, don’t expect a golden rule, or plan. You have to figure out what works best for you.
You have business, then you have podcasting, or music and then you have the podcasting, or music business. It all comes down to building leverage in the form of an engaged audience. Once you have, let’s say 1000-10000 downloads per month, depending on the industry, you can then start to approach brands and build partnerships, or create your own products and services to fuel the financial side of getting your art to really take off.
Join a community that can support you as a creator. Whether it’s a super expensive mastermind, free online group, or a local meetup doesn’t really matter. Collaborating and building community in line with your passion and goals is a game changer. You will learn things much faster, and you will be way less likely to give up.
Learn everything about your craft. Sure, you will end up outsourcing a lot. But if you’re in podcasting, or hip hop, learn how everything works from concept to creation, to marketing. Because once you know a base level of everything then you will better be able to outsource, and have collaborative conversations.
Build a team around you. Your support team will evolve and look different. At first, it may be pre-revenue partners, but over time it will scale and grow. Either way, you won’t do it alone. From the beginning focus on the concept “who, not how” when it comes to building your team. Ask, where would you benefit from support and teamwork, and continue to surround yourself with good people who reinforce a culture you want to build.
Done is better than perfect. That’s the most important thing to remember. We can have all the plans in the world, but if we don’t share our work no one will know about it, and we’ll never gain feedback on how to improve.

Memorable Quotes

“When you are creating most important is the subtraction. Because it’s easy to add. But can you have just the right pieces in the right places?”  “If something is done, let it be done. Most people get caught up by not finishing things. Anything you want to make, you have to decide at a point, it’s just done good enough, ship it and move on.”

“Figure out who you are. This is your journey. Other people won’t understand. If you know you are an artist, then be an artist and lean into the core group of people who do get you.”

“Hiring other people is underrated. It should happen way earlier. Whatever the thing is that you hate to do, that's probably giving you resistance from actually wanting to create, then outsource that, get someone else to do it.”

Guest Bio

Ryan R. Sullivan is a rapper, producer, DJ, and podcaster from New Jersey. He is also known by his stage name “SullyBop.” In 2016 he released his first single and since then has cultivated over 3000 amazing fans with 2 EP’s and a full length album.

Music continues to be a huge outlet and part of his life, along with his work as a performer and professional DJ. But the interest in audio has since been extended to include podcasting both on the art, and business side.

In 2018, he launched, BopCast, a podcast interviewing outliers who are breaking the mold of the status quo. Three years later, the podcast has been listened to in 10 countries by thousands of people, had 60+ guests, and sponsored by SodaBeats.com

Ryan is also the founder and CEO of Podcast Principles: a Full Service Digital Podcast Production Company. This is now his full time job and he wakes up grateful everyday to pursue work he loves.

His goal, through art and business is the same. To be able to make somebody's dream of spreading their voice to the world a reality.

FOLLOW Ryan
LinkedIn Sullybop
Website Sullybop.Com
Instagram @sullybop
Twitter TheSullyBop

FOLLOW JUSTIN (JustTries)
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Brendan Kane On One Million Followers And Successful Business

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Brendan Kane) — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 14:27:07 +0000

Brendan brought some tremendous wisdom to this conversation. Many articles refer to him as worlds best “growth hacker”. But in this interview, we hear why that often has a negative connotation and the way he really views his work. Essentially, he builds systems that help people achieve their business growth and marketing objectives in the shortest amount of time possible.

When asked what his thoughts were on building revenue streams vs creative when first starting out as an entrepreneur, he asked "if you were paid no money, would you still do it?" It’s so important to understand what your goal is when deciding what to work on next. Start by asking yourself, why do you want to do this? Do you actually want to?

We got into the idea of building a foundation for being a business owner by understanding that question and more. There were two very consistent themes of this episode.

Two Keys To Success In Life & Business

First off, if you want to have business and financial success, all you have to do is solve people’s problems. Get better at problem solving. It really is that simple, if you get better at finding solutions to things that others struggle with and you continue to improve your ability to provide a solution then you will never have to worry about money.

Secondly, everything comes down to communication. Your ability to sell your solutions is a perfect example. How do you let people know that you could really help them? Conflict resolution, leadership and collaboration all yield positive business and social media results. And each one of these topics result from good communication. So if you were to focus on a skill to improve, communication is always a good one.

Brendan shared what he learned from working with social media stars like Taylor Swift, Jay Shetty and Prince EA. He tells us how first off it is very possible to start from scratch and build a massive following. But, it comes down to developing the ability to create a one to one connection with your audience. Many people think it’s a one to many platform and that is where they go wrong.

We got into some great conversations about how to create hookpoints to grab attention in the first few seconds of a piece of content. We also discussed a few different ways you can make money from a social following. Brendan is by far one of the most well rounded, experienced leaders in the industry of online, social media driven business and it is a great episode to learn from for sure.

10 Things To Remember For Business & Social Media Marketing

Start with mindset. Learn where stress and anxiety come from and put strategies in place that work for you to build this mental foundation. Or else you will not succeed.
Don't start a business just be cause you like the idea, or you see someone else doing it. You should have your own reason for starting that model and a purpose that drives you to keep going.
Find a mentor that can provide you some specific expertise, help push you to be your best and be there to listen in the tough times.
The first business specific step is to start with a problem in the world that you can solve. Always start there. Ask yourself, what problem do you see in the world around you that you have, or are motivated to find a solution for?
Understand that everything comes down to communication. Sales, content creation, marketing, conflict resolution, leadership, and collaboration are all about communication. Keep improving communication and you will succeed.
You don't need traditional sales, you can build marketing content and focus on service without ulterior motives and if you provide solutions for people they will simply want to consume your content, hire you, buy your product, without you having to talk them into something.
Focus on building leverage by creating social media content that serves, not sells, your audience. Help them achieve goals through your content. Being selfless at the top of your funnel so to speak will lead to good connections, referrals and brand leverage as your following becomes bigger and more loyal.
Study the top content marketing leaders in your industry (not the outliers). Determine what they are doing to reach your audience? What do they do well that you can borrow?
In every interaction try to understand who somebody is, how they see the world, what they want to achieve, what are the greatest challenges to achieving that, and then provide solutions.
Before you pour gas on the fire of content creation and marketing, figure out what type of content you can create that people want to share. Once you figure out what people want to share, then scale that as much as possible.

Memorable Quotes

“I am only successful because I identify peoples problems and I provide them with a solution to solve that problem.”

" Everything comes down to communication. Sales, content creation, marketing, conflict resolution, leadership, and collaboration are all about communication."

“I don't technically sell. People come to me with a problem and I connect them to a solution. Sometimes it's something I personally have to offer, sometimes it's not. I connect them to the best resource I can think of to solve that specific problem.”

“I go into every meeting, every interaction trying to understand who somebody is, how they see the world, what do they want to achieve, what are the greatest challenges to achieving that, and then, ok, this is how I would solve that, and people come back to want to work with me. If you do that with every interaction you will never have a problem making money.”

Guest Bio

Brendan Kane has run digital marketing campaigns for MTV, The NHL Paramount Pictures, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and many other major brands. He is an agency owner helping companies grow no matter their current level. From pre-revenue all the way to the billions. He is also an entrepreneur with various business ventures, memberships, speaking, masterminds and books.

Brendan is also the best-selling author of two books. One Million Followers was a case study of how he grow an enormous following in thirty days. It provides systems and habits you can do to grow a million followers too. And hook point is the more recent book about creating attention-grabbing content to achieve your business goals in this noisy world.

FOLLOW BRENDAN
Instagram @brendankane
Facebook BrendanJamesKane
LinkedIn brendanjkane
Website brendanjkane

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Kelsye Nelson On How To Be A Successful Creative Entrepreneur

Fri, 4 Nov 2022 18:19:16 +0000

Kelsye has a wealth of knowledge to help the creative entrepreneur. We talked a lot about the importance of connecting and pursuing your passion, regardless of monetization.

The first step is to discover the interests and at least do them. Whether it is full time, part time, hobby, or any where in between, the most important thing is that you pursue it.

There were some very powerful moments in this episode. One of the early, heavy hitting and emotional topics revolved around regret and guilt. Kelsye shared how she felt guilty for being in the way of her moms dreams.

This lead to some awesome conversation about supporting others in chasing their dreams. One of the worse things we can do as family members is hold people back from their ambitions. At the same time, we need to be brave enough to set the example by pursuing our own dreams.

Kelsye shared a bit of her own challenging life experiences. We chatted about how with the right perspective, we can pivot difficult times into positive powers. We shared some ideas and anecdotes about this mindset. Talked a bit about trauma, the things that build our character and why it’s important to help people learn to take that stance.

The Magic Of Thinking Bigger

A lot of people who start a creative business start out thinking really small because they don’t feel they have permission to do more.

This feeling holds people back and they often get stuck freelancing, or building tiny products to sell. Kelsye flips this concept around.

She shares her strategy for building bigger, bolder ideas first. These ideas fuel the rest of your vision and goals. Through success at a higher level, with fewer people, you will actually be able to serve more people, faster.

One of the most exciting things was discussing the ideas about building community within your audience. The bigger your list of engaged, active audience members the better. This should be step one!

Kelsye shared some incredible tips on building your audience, marketing the right way and how to grow your own email, or text lists.

To help more people, you have to be selfish and promote. Her expertise and strategy around building your creative business is really helpful for both people looking to get started, or already far along their journey of entrepreneurship.

Kelsye shares a lot about sharing your work with others, and the necessary “evil” of self promotion that will help all of us be more successful.

How To Reverse Engineer Your Big Goals

There were some incredibly powerful points on how to manifest your big dreams and goals as well.

Kelsye shared the idea of writing down your vision, and believing in that future accomplishment as though it actually already exists. Don't just think about it, actually do it now.

Being thankful now, in the present, for things we want to exist our future is one of the most powerful actions we can take to achieving them in real time. Of course we need to put in the actions, but most crucial is feeling deeply that we’ve already achieved it.

When it comes to those actions, we talked a bit about prioritization and the importance of protecting our time and energy. It’s valuable to find balance, because we want to collaborate with each other, and have some down time left over. So, figure out the most important, one, or two things tied to your work and make sure you focus eighty percent of your time on those things.

15 Tips On Audience Growth And Creative Entrepreneurship

First, it’s not “either-or”. It’s not either you become a creative entrepreneur, or you go to a job you hate. This is a false idea. There are so many different ways to create a comfortable lifestyle that fits your passion and direction. So the way for you to succeed, you as an individual is nuanced.
Once you realize there are many ways to create a business you love, you have to decide what that success looks like to you and open up your own mind to deeply believe that it is possible for you.
Build your personal business foundation by starting with a website, preferably in your name. You might switch projects, niches, and content strategy, but you will always exist. So be sure to have this foundation that allows for making many pivots, while still building lifelong growth.
Regardless of your business model, in almost every case you are going to have to build an audience. Whether you create an app to sell, or you are a musician, you will have to build an audience around your messages.
Don’t only build a passive audience of subscribers, friends and followers. Be sure to build a more active audience who is willing to share their contact information, such as email, or text number with you.
The best way to grow your audience is to use other people’s audiences through collaboration and partnerships. By creating something radically helpful for their audience, they will want to put you on and share your work for you.
Create an email newsletter list. Use a software as a service, like Mailchimp, or convert kit, to create your email list management, newsletter system.
Share your newsletter as often as you can that brings unique, up to date, and valuable content with your audience. If that is every day, then do so, or it may be once a week, or once a month.
Only sell ten percent of the time. Ninety percent of the time, just bring value. Remember to give, give, give, give and then ask for something.
Build a resource that you can give away for free. You should always have things that are actually valuable, people would really appreciate having that they can gain access to in exchange for joining your email list. Not only should it be valuable to them, it should be free and unique, not something they could get elsewhere.
Make it very easy for people to unsubscribe. And.iIf people unsubscribe from your lists, don’t stress about it. That is fine. It helps sort who really cares about your work. Continue to learn and reinvest your time, and energy into those who you do have on your list still. Bring a ton of value to those who do stick around.
Think to the side of the main revenue stream. How can you build a lifestyle adjacent to, or around your main thing? When it comes to marketing, or secondary revenue streams, ask questions like; what can you teach people; what can you share that helps others; how can you participate in events, speaking engagements, or collaborations?
Think of products and services like a Hershey kiss. At the top you have very high end, more expensive items. You only need a few of these top customers to support creating the offers throughout the rest of your business. Over time, you will have offers at a few levels, that are all well worth it for that customer.
Work to improve your mindset, which is the foundation of healthy success. And actively improve your priorities. Never stop increasing the ability to focus your time and energy on the most important things to you and your business, rather than randomly on everything.
Write down and regularly visualize your goals and dreams. Believe so deeply that they already exist now. Don't worry about how they'll come to be, just keep believing and keep working.

Memorable Quotes

“Creative entrepreneurs often have a difficult time finding a comfortable way to build a business around painting, singing, writing, or taking pictures..”

“I hate the starving artist thing. There should be no such thing as a starving artist.”

“A creative entrepreneur is simply defined as someone creating something that is designed to have an impact on the world.”

“It is entirely possible to build a business around your art, that does not compromise your art, and that does not lead to your suffering materially. You may not be super rich, but you can build the life you want around your art.”

“I realized when I was pregnant, that if I wanted to be able to tell my daughter to chase her dreams, then I had better be brave enough to recognize my own and truly go for it.”

Guest Bio

Kelsye is an author, entrepreneur and creative community advocate. As founder of Gutsy Creatives, she helps professional creators, primarily writers, reach massive audiences to share their message and earn impressive revenue.

She has founded and served as CEO at multiple companies in her career that were venture backed. But she also knows how to keep her priorities in order. She is a family first leader, who still gets a lot of awesome creative and business work accomplished. And, she splits her time living between the USA and Sri Lanka.

Kelsye is also an enthusiastic public speaker, presenting talks and workshops on publishing, marketing, entrepreneurship, and startups at conferences and events around the world. She believes strongly in building community, both online and offline. While Kelsye has a large online following, she also maintains in person groups and meet ups.

FOLLOW KELSYE
Twitter - @Kelsye

LinkedIn - Kelsye Nelson

Website - KELSYE

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Sulhee Jessica Woo, Bento Box Queen On Viral Social Media And Being An Influencer

Fri, 28 Oct 2022 18:00:00 +0000

Being multi-passionate would be an understatement for Jessica. We learned that she paints, does makeup, fashion, loves business, martial arts, marketing and of course, making lunches!

Known as the Bento Box Queen, her “mommy makes lunches” style videos go viral, and as you’ll hear, that created a lot of attention. She’s continued to build a big following from that attention and turn it into a pretty big brand.

A great lesson for any pursuing dreams, is that Jessica did not expect lunches to be her main thing. She was simply documenting, and hitting share. She actually made many videos, of all different styles, prior to finding success in the cooking and food space.

It’s a great thing to remember. Keep creating, sharing and you never know when something great will come from it, as long as you get a bit better each day. Jessica is an inspiration for the modern content creator, because she simply shares what she loves doing.

This is why she is such an incredible example of how a one person business can start out small, and organic overtime. When that viral moment comes it creates exponential success and could become your full time thing. She also focuses on making sure that you actually like what you create, because if you don’t then it’s not worth it.

It was really interesting how a university degree in marketing was boring to her. Jessica also is an amazing example of transferable skills. Her learning has compounded over time to build a powerful personal brand.

It could be her journalism background that helped her get comfortable on camera. Perhaps her art expertise that allows her to create brand tones that speak to people. She really does put it all together in crafting success.

The way she creates is truly motivational as well. She uses no excuses, as a mom and partner, she doesn’t have a lot of downtime, but she manages it really well. She finds the most efficient ways to still create great content without overthinking, or over producing.

We are really aligned on the mindset she has around creating even if you have zero followers. She talked about leaving a legacy, so that even if she never had a follower, her kids could see what she created, learn her recipes and have a visit with mom. The other thing that’s super cool is she probably gives back to other creators and props up “small” creators as much as anyone.

14 Tips When Becoming A Viral Video Creator

Mostly you have to make the content. Every aspect of the next bunch of steps will improve by making the content and publishing it. You will learn for yourself what works, what doesn’t work, and all of your own tips and tricks.
Don’t just put out garbage, but focus on quantity over quality, because attention spans are so short for the majority of people today. And, it’s a lottery game. The more content you put out the more chances of you creating something that resonates and hits the jackpot. It might take a thousand videos until you get the one that one to finally go viral.
Find the style and way that makes sense for you. If it is off camera, then do that, dancing, or not dancing, whatever works for you.
Because platforms are starting to use more of an interest graph, instead of follower counts, means that creating around a topic, or theme, even if you have a small following can go viral, or trend and change your life.
Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one, very specific niche. You can increase clarity and brand awareness by doing very focused things, but make sure it is what you love to share and that you have a way to share the other things you love as well.
You don’t have to be fancy. When it comes to creating, use what you have. If you don’t have lights, be by the window. You don’t need a microphone, or camera because phones are so good these days. You can record in a closet if you have kids running around, or go for a quick walk and make something. It’s fine to build up to a studio, lights, cameras and blocks of creative time, but you probably won’t start there.
If you have the capacity, or money to be on all platforms with quality, and create both short, form and long form content, then in theory doing everything is always the best plan. But that is rare. Most of us should really focus on one style and one platform to grow at first.
You should be on all platforms at least as a profile. But, you don’t need more than a profile, with a few base level posts. And then focus on one platform for a significant period of time, or growth. Focus on a platform for a year, consistently and crosspost to the others.
Pick the style and platform of your personal choice, it is your art that you are sharing. Do you want to do quick, vertical, face on, political rants, or would you rather long produced, edited, documentaries? Whatever you want to make that is authentically you is what you should create.
Don’t overthinking publishing either. Push the content out. You don’t need a scheduler, or a regimen. You don’t need regular plans, scripts, or timelines. You don’t even need to be super regular, but you should be as consistent as possible. Basically, just hit send, ship your work and push the content out as much as you can.
Don’t underestimate the power of community when growing a following. It is reciprocal, give and take, but mostly give attitude that will make you a part of different groups and sub groups on topics that you share about, which will continue to grow your network, and brand while connecting with others.
If you watch a video, like it and comment on it. Supporting others can be a really good way to give back, but also makes sure you are always a part of all aspects of a social media platforms ecosystem.
Figure out what to keep private and what to share when it comes to your social media, influencer life. Everyone is different, but make sure that what you share is aligned with your actual values, and that you don’t do things just for the numbers.
If you do film family style content, and you have kids make sure that you are looking out for them. Don’t share things they may regret and can’t give consent to, and don’t ever pressure them to create. Let them decide what they want to share, and when they want to make something. If they don’t want to do not force them into anything, even a little bit.

Memorable Quotes

“A lot of people try to go viral, just for the sake of going viral. You should keep creating around the things you enjoy to do, so that when you do go viral you can continue doing those things.”

“The first time I went viral, in that year I had made over 500 videos. You have to put in the work.”

“Just be yourself. No one is like you. So that will make you stand out, by just being yourself and who you are, because no one is you and people will appreciate the real you.”

“You got to stop thinking and just do it. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just be like, hey, like, literally just do it. I think your best self comes out when it's literally just you doing it out of nowhere, you know, like no pre-planning.”

Guest Bio

Sulhee Jessica Woo is a creator from Las Vegas, who originally lived in Los Angeles. She is best known as the Bento Box Queen. On social media, she is well known as Jessica Woo, with the handle Sulhee Jessica.

She shares content related to healthy, balanced meals and other lifestyle content. Her most viral work to date has been sharing what she does to pack kid lunches. But she also shares about her other learning passions, art, and being a mom.

FOLLOW JESSICA

Tik Tok @sulheejessica
Instagram @sulheejessica
Youtube SulheeJessica
LinkedIn Jessica Woo
Twitter @Woolicious
Website Sulhee Jessica

FOLLOW JUSTIN (JustTries)

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Kobe Mamba Mentality And Your Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Kobe Bryant) — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 18:43:03 +0000

In this episode, we’ll learn how Kobe and his Mamba mentality can help us in figuring out our passions and dreams.
It’s my birthday today, and while our birthdays should, maybe could be a fun time, it can bring up many different emotions.

For me personally, I get deep feelings of survivor’s guilt. It can be so challenging to navigate this world, and yet so far, for another year I have made it.

Don’t get me wrong, the feelings are mixed with great joy and gratitude. The fact that I have yet another year, or at least day to keep making things and sharing them. This is why I am so big on the idea of leaving a legacy. One legacy that helps me a lot is that of Kobe Bryant and his Mamba mentality.

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Semistupid On Content Creation, Movies and Self Help For Creatives

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 12:26:47 +0000

We started out with some audience submitted questions that actually opened up some cool conversation. We learned things like favourite quotes, books and movies that he enjoys. We also got pretty deep talking about Ninja Turtle characters and how we are all best represented by one of them.

We talked about clout chasers and why David was willing to come on JKL even though our show isn’t huge (yet). It lead to a really good conversation about values and why we collaborate as creatives.

Semistupid is a big fan of TV and movies, so we probably brought up about a hundred different shows, or stories throughout the episode. Some really interesting wisdom, and discussion came from these examples.

Listening to the journey that David went on as a creator is pretty cool. He started with a passion for filmmaking at a young age. But there was no real way to share his projects before social media became more popular. Old cameras, purely for the creative, was where he got started. That’s changed a lot now that he has created a ton of viral content across social media.

Self-Help And Success For Creatives

The lifestyle around his creative life also went through transformations. He went from random videos as part of a creative partnership to building the brand Semistupid more as a solopreneur. He built better personal habits, daily routines and started to learn about building a business around his passion.

I think our conversation about success was really interesting. A lot of people see the actual content that is shared on our pages. What they don’t see is all of the work that goes into it. People don’t appreciate the routine, systems and habits. The fact that David built Semistupid for like ten years before finding fame. There is so much that you don’t see from your favourite creatives.

This could be depressing, but taken the right way it should be refreshing. Build patient, five to ten year goals and start crafting daily habits toward that vision. Love the process and great things will happen.

We didn’t really go into the micro of filmmaking and content creation. Instead of how to make a video, we got more into how to succeed as a creator. How can you monetize and live off of your passion? How long will it take? What kind of lifestyle will you live as a creative entrepreneur.

The self-help, personal development and productivity topics that we discussed was a pleasant surprise. For example, David is a great example of someone who actually maintains a solid morning ritual routine.

We also hear a lot of awesome ideas for maintaining mental health as a creative and how to live that good life. David also shares many of the book resources that helped him become successful. Hope you enjoy and if you do, please pass it along to someone else.

11 Things To Keep In Mind As A Content Creator

You can do many things in life, but can’t do everything. Discovering your one thing at this moment in your life and focusing on it is really important.
Create content because you truly enjoy it, and because you have values, or a message to share with your potential audience.
Select one platform to focus on primarily, and then cross post to the others. Focus first on the one that connects you to the medium and audience you are most aligned with.
Upload as much quality content to as many platforms as possible for you. That may be once a week to one platform. It may be 50 times per day to six platforms, but do what works best for you.
Pick a name, hashtag, or brand that speaks to your values and what you stand for. But also that is available in the marketplace across the various platforms.
Don’t be too big for anyone. But also don’t see your self as too small either. We aren’t above, or below each other, we are all creators.
Collaborate with accounts similar in size. Sharing audiences can be a really good growth hack. But don’t hold out for bigger accounts. Work with other comparable creators and keep building your network.
Develop habits that improves other areas of your life. Be sure to use a schedule, read, exercise, eat healthy, sleep well and do more activities that bring you vitality.
Continually improve the systems that make your process more efficient. Most importantly build systems that increase your time and freedom.
Develop a long term mindset. Anything worth achieving might take you 5, 10, 20 years, but if you know that’s the goal, then keep going. And if you want it, you will achieve it.
It doesn’t need to be your big passion to be successful. That word is over used. You might be passionate about golf, or travel but not want to monetize those things. Find something you want to monetize that is enjoyable enough, that you will push yourself to succeed no matter what, but that you can monetize.

Memorable Quotes

“You gotta remember, the Ninja Turtles were teenagers. Like for Raph, his mature self will have tamed the beast, and been a very wise person, just gotta give him some time.”

“I think a lot about memento mori, the idea that we are all going to die soon, that none of this is permanent, and it helps me with daily gratitude.”

“I don’t see myself as above anyone. Or below anyone.”

“Don’t set a timeline. If I gave up after three years no one would have heard of me. So, I basically got into it with the attitude, however long this takes, I’m going to make it work. Even, 10, 20, 40 years, I’ll be an old man trying to make videos pop.”

“Really think about what you say and what you do before you do it or say it. And if it's going to make you happier or a better person and those around you do it, if not, don't do it.”

Guest Bio

David Brubaker Aka Semistupid is a short video content creator, filmmaker and brand owner. He started the lifestyle brand Semi-stupid, which is also the guise that her creates his comedy under.

Like most creative entrepreneurs, he has worked a number of traditional jobs, pivoted into video creation and marketing for other people and then started making more content for himself. His attitude that it may take twenty years, but this is what I want to do with my life is definitely a big reason for his success.

He is now best known for sketch comedy shorts across social media. His Youtube channel bio states “Welcome to Semistupid. We are here to make you laugh, hopefully.” If that’s not straightforward enough I don’t know what is.

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Beyond the grave we are building legacy

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 17:16:49 +0000

“You must die” This D Word is the one thing we all have in common and without it we would be nothing more than robots, or laptops, used and then gone. When I’m in the mood for a nostalgic laugh I’ll watch Chris Farley, if I need inspiration to create listen to Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse, and need that kick in the ass Randy Pausch. All people I’ve never met…. If we document, create and share then we are so much more. So what’s your legacy and where are you leaving it?

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Is your work good enough yet?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 12:57:15 +0000

A “quote-unquote” perfect time will not arrive. You need to let good enough be good enough. It’s important to point out though, that you don’t need to strategize too early. In fact, strategy can often hold us back in the beginning. And there are three main ways that I want you to appreciate when something is “good enough”. Knowing on a deep level that A. you are good enough. B. your dream is good enough and C. the timing is good enough.

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Do You Actually Have A Growth Mindset?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 12:15:00 +0000

I like to say that the number one thing we do at Just Keep Learning is model a growth mindset. But what does that even mean? Now we could talk about this for many hours, and over the course of years I’m sure we will, but for this episode we’ll make sure that you have a clear grasp of the term and why it might be the most important skill you can develop. We’ll also look at a couple of myths when it comes to building a growth mindset. Three things that you should keep in mind when trying to live with a growth mindset.

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Maya Marcia Wieder On Manifestation And Owning Your Big Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justtries, Justin Nolan, Marcia Wieder, Maya Wieder) — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 12:38:42 +0000

Her most recent book was called “Dream: Get Clarity & Create The Life You Want.” Clearly, she is a great spokesperson for the JKL brand and values. A lot of time manifestation gets a bad name, but I trust this interview will clear a few things up when it comes to getting what you want.

Maya is one of the best dream manifestation coaches and business leaders ever. Ever. As the founder of Dream University and author of 15 great books on life goals, she is one of the best at helping you learn that “YOU are a creator once you can shake loose the grip that the ego has on you”.

That’s a pretty incredible accomplishment given there are so many influential “dream big” authors, speakers and coaches. We talked about integrity and intention being the guiding principles of manifestation.

She is an incredibly open and honest leader in the business world. As humble and wise as she is, there are a ton of business accolades that she could boast about. We talked a bit about business and career success. But much of the conversation was about life.

We got into our major, recent experiences with grief, which wasn’t easy, but I think was an important part of the conversation. Specifically the importance of staying in the present moment. We also chatted about the fact that finding balance with grief is so valuable. We have to dig into our emotions, and trauma, but not so much that we beat ourselves up. Remember, if you’re struggling, there are people you can reach out to. Talking about it is really helpful.

She shares a bit about building some celebrity notoriety, fame one might call it and deciding to close up shop for things she found more important in life. We learned about changing her name and shifting business passions for art passions, particularly as a painter.

We talk about living on track and on purpose as individuals having a truly unique experience. Maya has an incredible level of wisdom that we can all learn from. Especially in the business world. It can be so easy to get caught up in things that aren’t truly impactful in this world. And being true to ourselves is the key.

I absolutely love her take on discernment, the idea of being reflective enough to make decisions for ourselves. Maya shared her thoughts that many of us have “to-do” lists. But, in reality, most of us need “stop doing” lists instead. If we don’t know our values, and what actions mapped to them, then we can’t figure out what to do, and not to do. Given the choice, we should stay true to ourselves.

She is such an inspiration for many reasons, but practicing what she preaches is definitely one of them. It takes a unique, confident person to use this discernment to walk away from an incredibly successful and growing business because it wasn’t suitable to who she wanted to be anymore. I love all of our interviews, but this one will always hold a special place in my heart. Hope you enjoy.

20 Things To Keep In Mind When You Dream Big

Develop a creator mindset that allows you to dream. You have to understand that everyone who has achieved anything was no better than you. They just let their dreams come to them.
Don’t wait. There will never be a better time to get started. That does not mean figure out the strategy, yet. That comes later. But, if you have a dream, go for it, start now.
Get clear on your dreams. This tends to be the most challenging step for anyone, at any age, in any season of life. Not to over simplify, but our minds simply make up our dreams. They just come to us if we let them.
Believe in your dreams. Prove that they are important enough to you by standing up to fear and doubt and choosing to believe in them. Not because they will come true for certain. Whatever is supposed to be will be, but because believing in them and their impact is important to you.
Act on your dreams. Once you have clarity it can be addictive to talk about what you would, should or could do. But the universe will get behind your work once you put it into action.
Stop telling your story. You are not your story. Your story will evolve and will even be completely different to different people, but it’s not something that you need to tell. Some times we get so stuck in past beliefs and we need to decide that they are no longer serving us. Move on from past stories by hitting your reset button and living in the moment.
Enrol people in understanding your dream. You won’t achieve it alone, and the only way to find the support you need is to share the goal in a compelling way that builds a community that is bigger than you. Create culture and connection around your dream.
Share your dream by building a community in two steps. First, inspire, and then invite. Most of us suck at inviting. Just think, what should you ask of people that is reasonable and will lead to making a change in the world?
Build your dream team. Don’t ask for “too much”, but articulate your clear vision to others. Ask people to help in whatever way feels appropriate to that particular relationship and make it easy for them to say “yes”. This happens through building trust and having them understand the clear, reasonable role that they play in supporting a goal that they agree with.
Understand dreams come from different places. Some are from necessity, such as the way we want to pay the bills, or put food on the table. Some dreams come from desire, like a vacation, meeting a celebrity, or driving a certain car. And the most powerful dreams come from purpose.
Purpose, which leads to our greatest dreams is about knowing who you are. What is your why? What are your values? What impact would you like to have? What are you non-negotiable?
To live on purpose requires three things. One, to have your spiritual practices. Could be walking, running, meditation, prayer, or art. Secondly, know what makes you uniquely you, your failures and successes that make you one of a kind. And third, decide on how you can use your gifts to be in service of others.
There are two types of obstacles. An internal challenge, one that requires self reflection and mindset growth. Or an external job, something that requires a strategy and plan to deal with.
Know your “Not To-Do List”. It is just as, maybe even more important to know what drains you of energy, or time that is not serving your purpose and stop doing those things.
Develop a coach like mindset. Whether for you, or a team, use reflection, feedback, innovation and making adjustments as part of your regular routine.
The difference between a dream and a fantasy is that you could craft a strategy to work toward a dream. But don’t choose a strategy too soon. The sooner we strategize, the sooner we limit the ways in which our purpose could come true.
If you’re working toward a long term, real big dream, then break it down into a shorter term project, or goal. What’s a reasonable next step that you can work toward each day for the next thirty days that is aligned toward helping that big dream? Make sure you can measure and celebrate the success of this short term progress.
We sabotage our dreams by projecting our fears and doubts into the goals. We do this with three little words, “but what if”. When you find yourself thinking “what if” as a barrier to taking the next step, remind yourself the quote from Peter Pan: “What if I fall? Oh but my darling what if you fly?” and most importantly remind yourself of your purpose.
Figure out some of your blockers in life. What is holding you back? Identify a particular skill that you would benefit from improving as it relates to your dream. Much like being an athlete, craft a practice. A practice is the smallest possible routine that you can do to turn that weakness into a strength. Do this practice on a prescribed regimen just like practicing for sport, or fitness, until you think it would be more beneficial to work on something else.
It’s a forever thing. No one who is still here has completely fulfilled their purpose. If we have the opportunity to still be here, then we still have purpose we can pursue. Keep going.

Memorable Quotes

“Intention & integrity are the foundation of living on purpose. Knowing what you value and bringing your gift to the world is incredibly important. Sometimes it will help you pay the bills and sometimes it won’t.“

“I love shortcuts. We can shortcut the process of learning by standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us.”

“The $64,000.00 dollar coaching question, are you more committed to taking action toward making your dream a reality, or are you more committed to your fears, doubts and insecurities?”

“Don’t be giving dreaming a bad name by living in la-la fantasyland. You need to apply strategy and take action.”

“You are a creator. Shift your mindset so that you can use your ego to help you create solutions that will do great things for yourself and others in the world“

“When you have a choice, start saying no thank you to things that aren’t in full alignment with your purpose. Over time you will see a shift from doing a lot of things in life you don’t want to do to doing more of the things you do want to do.”

“I’ve seen many people go further in life with passion and commitment, than skill, experience and gobs of money.”

Guest Bio

As founder and CEO of Dream University, Marcia Wieder has spent over 30 years leading a DreamMovement. She also created and leads a modern day “mystery school”, The Meaning Institute, to help people live more meaningful lives.

Marcia collaborated with 3 U.S. presidents, was a repeat guest on Oprah, had her own PBS television special and taught at Stanford’s Business School. She is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council and an advisory board member for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Unstoppable Foundation where she financed and helped build 15 schools in Kenya.

She is the renowned author of 15 books including; Dream: Clarify & Create What You Want, Making Your Dreams Come True, Life is But a Dream, Dreams are Whispers From the Soul and Doing Less & Having More. She writes for Huffington Post, is now a guest on Just Keep Learning and was also a syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

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15 Tips For Telling Better Stories

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Fri, 7 Oct 2022 20:40:24 +0000

Human beings are natural storytellers. We all tell stories all the time. We tell friends, family, and colleagues things that we witnessed, or things we did. And naturally we’re pretty darn good at it. We also connect with published stories. Think of any classic tale, Goldilocks and the three bears, maybe a movie like the Lion King, or the way a stand up comedian like Kevin Hart pulls us into a story about the time he was racing an ostrich. The interesting thing is, because storytelling comes so natural to us, it’s one of the things that we also overthink the most. I trust this episode will help remind us how simple storytelling can be. But first, why do we even want to talk about it?

You can't teach without learning and can't learn without teaching. And storytelling plays a huge role for both. Fiction, or non fiction, we learn lessons from others through stories. And when we teach we craft stories to get our point across. Storytelling is something that could be infinitely studied and discussed. But one thing I’ve realized about getting better at storytelling is that every now and again it’s nice to look at a list of advice for storytelling as a refresher. No matter how good you might get at the craft, reviewing such reminders can be helpful.

But first, what is a story? Neil Gaiman says “after all of the years of telling stories, the definition of a story, is “anything that keeps you interested in learning more and doesn’t leave you feeling cheated at the end”.

For every one of these concepts, we could go on huge tangents and a million connections, in the future perhaps we can circle back to go in more detail on some specific ideas. But for now we’re just trying to remember some strategies to make our stories better?

Check out these 15 ways to tell a better story.

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Jeremy Enns On Mindset, Creative Business And Podcast Marketing

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justtries, Justin Nolan, jeremy enns) — Thu, 6 Oct 2022 14:41:47 +0000

Jeremy shares how he took a meandering path in his professional life. This included being a musician, college for audio engineering, the nine to five, followed by an interest in travel, entrepreneurship and podcasting.

He brings up his appreciation for extreme ownership that he borrows from Jocko Willink. We talk about the idea that getting into creative work mostly requires taking this extreme ownership, and a leap of faith. But, the important thing is to get started. Get into those early versions of your work and just keep going.

Jeremy hosts a Podcast Marketing Academy where he coaches people through the process of building their audience. He also creates content that helps people develop their own creative confidence. Much of this comes through his newsletter creation. A surprise in the episode was how much writing Jeremy does to fuel his creativity and business success.

We talk about the concepts that underlie a lot of creative success. We discussed curiosity, intuition and confidence. We also shared some insight as to how little the actual work we pursue at any given moment matters. What truly matters is the transferable skills and mindset we develop.

Speaking of mindset, a lot of the conversation provided a glimpse into the mindset of the creative entrepreneur. If this is a goal of yours there will be a transformation from needing people to tell you what to do, all the way to feeling like you can figure things out on your own.

Of course collaboration is still super important, something else that also came up. We talked about how growing on social media, or podcasting is similar to the hip hop industry in that you can put other people on to help them out. Sharing fan bases and audiences can really help each other grow in kind of a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship.

This is one of the longest episodes to date, and it is great! Jeremy shares a lot of great marketing tips that are not scammy, or spammy. Jeremy Enns is the type of leader we need in entrepreneurship. No doubt, this is one of the most informative episodes when it comes to common sense marketing.

15 Tips For Marketing Your Podcast

Understand podcasts are long term projects. If the goal is to grow an audience that leads to monetizable success, realize this won’t happen right away.
Do some quick research. Study your own ten favourite shows. Listen to and ask yourself, why are these effective? Why do these shows do well? What can I borrow from their style?
Over time, develop your own unique brand characteristics and show style.
Create the first episodes. The most important thing is to create and publish as soon as possible. You could do this by creating pilot episodes that are private to test with your audience at first, but either way you have to create the first shows.
The version that becomes successful will not be your first version, or it will be drastically different from the first versions, so just get started and keep learning. Don’t attempt to plan out everything from beginning to end. Take action, learn and pivot.
Be sure you learn, or hire someone to ensure that you are creating audio that sounds reasonably good. It’s not difficult, but takes some learning and is important.
Create compelling content. This happens by getting the first 100 reps in as soon as possible because. If you pay attention to your audience, your skills will develop.
If it’s an interview show, learn and practice what questions to ask and how to carry on a conversation that makes the episode emotional, entertaining and educational.
The strategy to growth is to get audiences to see something about your show that makes them want to click play on the first episode. Always work on the show so that it is more than worth the audience’s time.
Gone are the days of creating any show and growing an audience. It can still be done, but requires differentiation. What makes your show different for the listener? There may be a few successful shows in your niche that are similar, which you can use as an advantage if you find ways to stand out from the crowd.
Once you have a differentiated show that is consistent, with good audio and a bit of a community, then you can have fun with marketing by getting in front of similar people and sharing your messages with them.
Find similar audiences to the community you are building. Find new listeners in social media groups, newsletters and similar podcasts. Share your work and process, for free because you are a good person and good things will happen.
You want new audience and community. When you post on social media, the people who see it, typically, are people who already follow you. So, posting is important, but should be no more than a quarter, twenty five percent of the way that you build your brand on social. Really focus on engaging, commenting, replying and participating in conversations, as opposed to simply sharing your content.
Collaborate more. Focus on organic engagement with similar accounts on social media. Find other hosts, or brands you vibe with and just be completely generous by supporting their work, commenting, replying and not worrying about making any asks. You will get in front of their audience by collaborating with people on a similar level to you. Keep levelling up these collaborations over time.
Feel free to switch up your style every so often. Quarterly bonus episodes, testimonial shows, or interviews if you typically record solo, vice versa do solo if you typically interview. It can spice things up, but remember to over communicate the plan with your audience and be sure it doesn’t take away from the thing people already appreciate.

Memorable Quotes
“It is right to believe that you will be successful, but remember the version that ends up being successful will be drastically different than all of the versions that come first.”

“I’ve always wanted to create more stuff myself. I think it's worth just getting that first, the first business, the first gig, whatever it is, it’s not the be-all, end-all. It's just something to get you started because you're going to learn a lot about yourself and what you like and what you don't like.”

"A lot of times when we don't have confidence because we aim too high too fast. To build confidence, what's the smallest little viable thing I can do that I can succeed at? And maybe it won't be the first time, but that I can start seeing like, okay, I can bet on myself and I can make that bet. I can succeed.”

Guest Bio
Jeremy Enns is an entrepreneur, writer, & marketing teacher. He is the founder and CEO of Counterweight Creative, and agency that focuses on helping creative brands succeed. They create helpful products and offer services to support creative entrepreneurs. Their main focus is audio engineering and podcast marketing. But they also have courses you can take and content like the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter.

Jeremy and his team have worked with hundreds of brands, entrepreneurs and creators, helping them generate tons of podcast downloads and millions of dollars in revenue. He and his company really understand the recurring patterns that separate shows that grow and convert casual listeners into raving fans, clients, and customers.

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8 Cures For Overwhelming Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, ed sheeran) — Mon, 3 Oct 2022 12:19:02 +0000

What is a big dream? I love this definition from Sharon Hull “it is the seed of possibility planted in the soul of a person, which calls them to pursue a unique path to realize their purpose.” Now as amazing as that is, it does sound heavy. And this is why dreaming big can be overwhelming.
It is abstract. We daydream, we dream at night, and we dream when we envision goals. In this instance, when we say “dream big” we are referring to your ambitions. Even though our ambitions should excite us, they so often lead to more confusion and overwhelm. That is because in order to get there you have to go towards scary experiences. When we move toward scary experiences, dream blockers can enter.
Things such as fear, doubt, perfectionism, regret, stress, and peer influence. In later episodes, we can go more in detail on the dream blockers, and defining our dreams, but for today, let’s lay the foundation for being less overwhelmed by dreaming big in the first place. In order to dream big, pursue your ambitions, and not be overwhelmed, it helps to keep eight things in mind.

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Football, Love, Hate Relationship & Eudaimonia

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, ed sheeran) — Sat, 1 Oct 2022 15:18:28 +0000

Have you heard the term Eudaimonia? It is what we should all strive for. True vitality & flourishing in life. Not any one emotion, but beyond emotion, it is a combination of living with virtue, and a deep focus on what you CAN control. This episode will remind us that we never know what is good, or bad. And living with a full appreciation of this is Eudaimonia.
I want to get right into it, because this is more of a short story than anything and I think it speaks for itself. But what I will say is we can learn from any connections we have in life. Anyone, or anything we experience can bring about valuable lessons. This is mine from football.

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Ben Yeh On Strategies For A Stronger, More Successful Mind

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justtries, Justin Nolan, ben yeh, benjamin yeh) — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 11:53:00 +0000

We need to update our phones to the latest operating system and we need to do that with our minds too. If you are someone who feels stuck in life, or on a particular goal, then understanding the wisdom Ben shares in this episode will definitely help. He goes in great detail about improving our mind, body and spirit to align with our goals.

This was a very inspiring conversation. If you listen to this episode and start putting in the work you will definitely make huge progress toward your goals. As a business and transformation coach, Ben focuses on the things that are within our control to give us the greatest chance of success. He is really helpful when it comes to learning to regulate our emotions.

He tells us a story about the daydream he had that changed his trajectory in life. Envisions his happy family brought about feelings that weren’t aligned with how he felt. From this experience he decided it was time to course correct.

To keep it simple, Ben works with each person as an individual. He also looks at the big, practical, holistic picture of them as a person. There is no one size fits all answer. He starts by asking what is your goal? Where do you want to go? Does your current belief system align with that destination? If not, then how can we start to bridge that gap?

When it comes to being a life coach you learn so much about how to help other people more effectively. Ben shared a lot of his expertise in the area of coaching. This can help you if you get into coaching anyone else, or applying the principles to your own life. One of the cool concepts Ben shares is how to take a leap of faith make it more simple so it shifts into being a jump of faith, or a step of faith instead.

Ben shares his wisdom on the mind, body and spirit connection. You might understand the physical fitness gym, but do you understand how to go to the mental fitness gym?He also shared how important the language we use is, especially with ourselves. It’s so important to to speak in a way that improves our lives, instead of making them more challenging. The words we use, in our self talk, or when describing our past, or future are a powerful indicator of success.

Plans, purpose, productivity and success are all conscious representations of our unconscious programming.

Ben calls it our “SOS”, subconscious operating system. This part of our mind and body is very important in laying a foundation for the things that we want in life. Like any operating system, on our phone, or computer, we always need to check to make sure we are fully up to date.

This is a must listen episode! Ben shares a lot of analogies, such as picturing our lives as a car. He also shares some acronyms that we can use to keep our best life in mind. Hands down this is one of the most action packed episodes when it comes to helping you with goal setting.

11 Things To Keep In Mind When Starting A Business

Remember that your subconscious operating system of your mind, emotions and your words will impact how your conscious progress, goals and success is achieved.
Always strengthen your mental fitness of imagination, voice and intuition.
Find someone who you can lean on, who supports you unconditionally in pursuing your goals. When the going gets tough you’ll need them to pick you up.
Don’t just observe past mistakes and failures. Use them as a learning tool to strengthen your intuition.
Use the fruit farmer analogy. Make proper progress and the fruit will come. Maintain your soil by surrounding yourself with good people and environments. Keep watering by learning as much as you can about your niche and business. And get enough sun by finding purpose and meaning in the work you do.
Don’t get on the hamster wheel of hustle. Take the time and patience to make sure you are going in the right direction. One step in the right direction is better than a hundred in the wrong direction.
Things can change, but decide on the first direction you want to try. Is it a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, e-commerce store, course creation, subscription, freelance work, newsletter? Pick one to focus on at first.
Once you know the first direction, look at similar business models. Learn from other companies, mentors, or heroes. Learn what they did well, not so well and get ideas from their experiences.
Build a simple, one paragraph business plan and ask for feedback from people who understand entrepreneurship. Make some minor adjustments to the plan based on feedback and then get started asap.
Create your MVP, Minimum Viable Product and bring it to market. Whether it’s your first piece of content, such as a blog post, or the first t-shirt, bring the concept to market, test it, and get more feedback.
Continue to learn and pivot, but always remember that action is the most important thing.

Memorable Quotes

“Maybe the path I’m on was designed by others. It’s not the path that my souls wants to be on.”

“When you’re nervous, focus on service.”

“Are you your own worst critic? Or are you your own best cheerleader?”

“I got laid off at Christmas and that was a tough pill to swallow. But, when one door closes another opens up, we just have to be present to be able to see the other door.”

Guest Bio

Ben Yeh is an entrepreneur, speaker, & business leadership coach. In 2014, a major event changed his life. He reached clarity when he became a parent. At that moment he decided the success and career path he was on wasn’t aligned with his inner world. He took a leap of faith and became an entrepreneur.

Since then he has built his own successful business and turned his sights toward helping others do the same. His professional, personal and spiritual growth has given him a tremendous wealth of experience and tools to truly understand what you’re going through. No matter what is holding you back from your purpose, the blog, podcast and coaching that Ben provides can bring a lot of value.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

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Success Is Math As Told By Ed Sheeran

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, ed sheeran) — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 22:04:54 +0000

In this solo episode, we hear from the superstar musician Ed Sheeran. He's sold hundreds of millions of dollars in music and yet his common sense approach to building skills can help any of us, with any skill we want to build.

We also hear about the famous pottery parable where a professor tested the concept of quality vs quantity in his art class.

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Why Just Keep Learning?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 03:50:26 +0000

In episode two we get right into the learning!
How can the Just Keep Learning Mindset will help you get over that annoying imposter syndrome feeling?

We talk about the idea that we are all on our own journey. We also talk about Ariana Grande's song and what it can teach us about learning.

Speaking of which we also mention why learning and being a kid for life is so much more important than school.

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Why Am I Doing SOLO Episodes?

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 11:25:47 +0000

There is a bit of a back story as to how we got here, but first, welcome to the first ever JKL Solo episode. I trust these will really help you own those big dreams!

This first episode will help you get over that annoying imposter syndrome feeling.

Creating solo episodes is something that I have been putting off creating for over a year now. In this episode I share 4 reasons why I was scared to put out SOLOs.

I share a couple of people who pushed me to be better and get over the fear of publishing on my own.

And we get into the reasons why solo episodes might just be valuable after all.

I also lay the foundation for the style of show, and the fact that I would LOVE for you to submit questions and topics on social media , or email. If you have feedback or an idea for the show, reach out here.

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Jake Lang On Side Hustles, Serial Entrepreneurship and Blogging

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Jake Lang, Justin Nolan, Justtries) — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 14:46:33 +0000

Jake is a perfect example of the Just Keep Learning mindset. He started going through the traditional education and corporate system, but kept dreaming and reflecting. He went from engineering, a pivot to the insurance world, and eventually found that his heart was closely tied to business.

This led to a classic side hustle grind of managing minutes on train rides to work, lunch time, the ride home, evenings and weekends to build some leverage. Through trial and error, a few failures and eventual successes he managed to make serial entrepreneur his career full time. He is the founder of 8 businesses and counting, many of which we discuss in this episode.

He shares some pretty cool stories about how it wasn’t always that way. He started his first business making zero sales. Although, he learned how to better validate an idea. His second business actually brought in three sales through pre-selling, but then he refunded that revenue anyway, when he had to close down the business.

One of Jake’s areas of expertise is in building niche sites and using blog posts to create organic traffic to the site. He essentially gives us a mini masterclass about the concept of starting a niche site. How to drive traffic, research keywords and ideas for monetization.

Jake has an overall umbrella company that holds each of the micro, automated, niche businesses. Each of these separate businesses are case studies for his overall project, the entrepreneur ride along. This main business brought us together.

At the Entrepreneur Ride Along he hosts a podcast, blogs, and coaches people to get started in their own business journey. This is where his personal brand and educational content on business specifically exists and can grow forever.

We chat a lot about how to get clarity over your business ideas, how to create content and how to start generating revenue. Jake also reminds us that you don’t need to be everywhere doing everything online. Share your marketing content where it makes the most sense for you and your business. It was neat to hear him tell how he hardly uses social media channels to build his business. While social can be a great addition to your marketing, the ability to build a foundation on your site and rank on Google is more valuable with this business model.

10 Steps To Start Your First Online Business

Brain dump and mind map. Think of all the things that you are passionate about, see opportunities in, problems you notice that maybe you could solve and what skills, or expertise you have.
Narrow your list of hundreds of things down to a top thre. By going with your gut in terms of passion, but also in combination with overall validating keyword research, figure out, this actually a problem that people need help with? Do people actually search for this online?
Find out if people actually care? Once you know there is overall search interest and volume of people who also see that as an important question, or problem, learn more about their pain points. Go deeper with your market research and ask potential clients in forums, messages, or groups.
Know your personal marketing channels. Some businesses may use only email, or newsletter. Others might find that social media sharing is really important. If you have the budget, then maybe you are everywhere, all the time.
Create your pillar content. This is the major content creation that you will start with. This could be a podcast, blog, or video creation that teaches and engages with an audience on a topic that your brand values.
Build your community. Take a long term approach from day one to build your email list, and, or group as you continue to gain traction by relating to people who have similar pain points. Continue to find ways to bring your community together in fun ways.
Ask for feedback. Engage with your community to learn what they think about possible product and service ideas and then create a minimum viable product.
Don’t be afraid to get actual commitment to your ideas. If something will take a lot of your time to create, then you can always double check people will actually pay for that product, or service by giving them a pitch and having them actually pre-buy. If enough people show interest and you deem it worthwhile, then create it.
Build a keyword strategy by using a service that shows you Google search data. Find search phrases that people use that not only have a high search volume, but when you look at the sites that rank on Google for those terms, you can compete with the authority of that website and rank for yourself.
Build a continuous, feedback loop machine that allows you to identify content people want, create content, build an audience, identify pain points, provide solutions (free or paid), get feedback about what customers want, and repeat.

Memorable Quotes

“Don’t be afraid to be different. I wish I learned a lot sooner that I could be different and do my thing.”

“I don't do a ton of social media. I focus primarily on blogging and one on one connections.”

“Do the whole MVP, minimum viable product thing where you ask, what is the simplest form of this product that I can make and sell that validates this idea and shows that people actually want to buy it?”

Guest Bio

Jake Lang started his first online business in 2014. He has built eight online businesses and generated more than $200,000 dollars from his ventures. While he still maintains multiple niche sites, his main personal brand is behind coaching and courses to help others build businesses too.

He has learned what is necessary to start a successful online business that generates thousands of dollars in recurring passive income each month. His expertise are in niche site building, SEO and blogging. He documents his journey, teaches about business and shares results at his main business, The Entrepreneur Ride Along.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

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Arielle Nissenblatt On Learning, Geography, And How To Start A Podcast

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Arielle Nissenblatt, JustTries, Justin Nolan) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 13:23:40 +0000

Arielle talks about the journey of formal education in her life. She went from being more reserved and lacking confidence to finding her true passions and believing in herself more.

She opens up about being diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disability in her early years. This also lead to some traumatic memories of being removed from class for needing more help with math. Even though it’s meant to help, in her case, and probably most cases, it did more harm than good.

Through post-secondary education and entering the workplace, she was able to better connect with her passions in the real world and her confidence grew. One of these big passions was geography. The other one, was podcasting.

We talked about being a multi-passionate person and how it’s ok to have so many interests. We found out the extent of organization systems Arielle uses and some of her interests. She has many new passions from TikTok, to checking out new food, mapping, rollerblading, tennis, soccer, and of course anything new in the world of podcasting.

Like always, there were some awesome surprise tidbits in the conversation. We learned how she broke her elbow and her Apple Watch called 911. Arielle also shared that she is pretty much vegan, loves storytelling and is a geography expert. Arielle has an incredible mindset and approach to life. She is the absolute definition of a lifelong learner.

Memorable Quotes

“If you have an idea for a podcast. Awesome. Great. Think about why it should be a podcast first.”

“I Love Podcasts. When I started listening, I just became exposed to all of these new people and all of these new stories that I had not been aware of beforehand.”

“I am constantly challenged to come up with new ideas. I love marketing concepts and I love connecting with people about how to tell their stories.”

13 Things To Remember When You Start Your Podcast

Know your why. Not just from a philosophical, motivational standpoint. Know why it should be a podcast. Could it be a different medium? What about podcast specifically do you think is valuable to tell this story, or share this information? Make sure it is best as a podcast, it can be easier to test YouTube, or blogs first to see if you want to keep investing time and energy into it.
Decide on a format. Is it going to be you interviewing a guest; you and a co host interviewing; you and someone else having a conversation; a panel of guest; or a solo, scripted show; or perhaps a combination? Get some clarity on the format, template and structure of an episode.
If it’s an interview show make a long list of the people you would want to interview and send as many pitch emails as possible. You will get no’s, but no’s lead to yes’s and everything happens for a reason.
Continually and consistently put out content to continue to grow your show. Creating traction comes from consistency, so be sure to build systems that allow you to bank episodes and upload regularly. Create your show like a podcast assembly line.
What investments can you make up front for the show that allow for you to focus on what you do best, or to make things more streamlined? For example, hiring an editor can free you up to be the talent on the show. But, this also depends on the style of your show. With a regular conversation, the editing work is not complex, keep it simple, clean up the sound a bit, remove a few awkward pauses and hit publish. If you have a very pre-scripted, polished and produced series, then the editing will take hours to complete. It’s all about knowing what your brand message is when it comes to the style of creative you are going for. But overall being aware of how much time, or money you have to invest in the show and the next best investment is valuable.
Over communication with your listeners is valuable because clarity is key. As you grow an audience and want to build a community there is no room for confusion. Publish with a rhythm and cadence that is clear and people can easily understand. When can people find the latest episode? Will you be changing formats and how will your audience know? You want to build connection by being transparent and involving your audience. Let them know what you are doing. If the audio is a bit messed up in an episode, let them know up front. If you are bringing two guests on instead of one, or doing some solo rants, let them know. Communicate any new developments, or challenges with your audience.
The audio quality must be stellar. It is really hard to get away with audio that doesn’t sound good. Whether this means practicing editing tools, or hiring someone to do it for you, ensuring audio quality doesn’t interfere with listening enjoyment should be a top priority.
Choose a podcast hosting site. There are many, but use one of the popular ones because it will be straightforward, user friendly and keep up with the times. Simplecast, Buzzsprout, and Libsyn are the top three. This site will take your episode uploads and distribute them across all of the podcast players.
Transcribe your audio for a few reasons. One, it makes your show accessible for those who have difficulty hearing. It also improves SEO and rankings because it adds an element to your product. You can also use the text version to create threads, or posts on your site and social media when it is already in written format.
When it comes to marketing, utilize social media to share your show, but don’t worry about being on every platform, all day, everyday. If you don’t have the capacity when starting out, focus on creating great content on the podcast itself and then choose one platform to share to that makes the most sense for you based on your interests and skills. Also, create each of your micro content pieces so that they can stand on their own. Don’t just add links to your show. Test ways to share your small versions of your podcast in an entertaining way. You can also do giveaways, or reward people for making reviews and sharing.
Strive to build a community around your brand and the podcast. Find ways to get your community to be a part of the show. Engage them by making them part of episodes, perhaps saying where they’re from and why they listen? Doing an episode with a listener, or having them choose topics are all good ways to get them even more involved.
Making money with your podcast is a long game. In the first year you can certainly make some money back, perhaps break even. But in all likelihood you won’t be making a big profit. You can start making money with ads. One of the things you should do is learn to pitch brands, or collaborations that align with your listeners as well. Explain to them why your show would be the right fit for people wanting to buy what they have. You also could start to promote and provide your own products and services once you have a captive audience and realize how to help them.
Continue, for the life of the show to do a few other things. From day one, build your reputation and personal brand as someone other people would want to collaborate with. Over time keep adding more and more partnership opportunities. Keep building your skills in the industry as well. Always maintain a mindset of analyzing costs-benefits for how and where you can make money, as well as what investments you can put into the show. What resources can you outsource, what revenue can you grow and what do you want to keep doing yourself? These things never stop growing and in fact will compound as you succeed with your podcast. Oh, and just keep learning!

Guest Bio

Arielle is a podcast producer, writer, speaker, business leader, marketer and community building specialist.

She absolutely loves podcasts and has been working in the podcast space for many years, holding many positions throughout the industry. She’s managed a podcast studio, consulted on projects for businesses and individuals, worked as an in-app curator, a marketing expert and consultant, speaker, and a community manager.

She founded EarBuds Podcast Collective in 2017. EarBuds is a weekly podcast recommendation engine that sends a newsletter with a theme and 5 podcast episodes on that theme, and each week is curated by a different person.

Currently, she manages the community team at SquadCast, the best remote recording software solution. She also produce short audio pieces on areas of life that interest her (and sometimes others) and a couple of podcasts herself.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

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Steve Cody On Overcoming Odds, Serial Entrepreneurship And His Latest Company

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Steve Cody, JustTries, Justin Nolan) — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 01:55:34 +0000

Steve Cody has started 18 businesses and clearly is a lifelong learner. He doesn’t make excuses and has built opportunities over the years with the attitude “where there is a will there’s a way.” This no excuse attitude was a big part of the episode, as he shares examples of how he learned to be independent and solve problems.

Growing up in a household with a single mom, moving schools a lot and having to get started paying bills young he’s leveraged all of that into his character. Much of the episode is evidence about how much of an impact his mother had on him to becoming the businessman that he is. Learning how to aim for your big goals, try things you’ve never done and win, or learn, are great examples of such life lessons.

We also get into the discussion around how to best help other youth who may be having to overcome odds and some ideas as a society on how we can make some changes. Steve is a great person to lead this charge because he understands first hand what some youth are going through. He brings up a great point that we really need to meet them where they are, because those who struggle just don’t know any different.

Steve started his first business out of necessity to start pulling his weight with household bills. And before long he had scaled one business after the other. Building from one opportunity to the next, he went from a window cleaning business at fifteen, to rental businesses and eventually building tech companies. Steve takes us on quite the journey to share all of his entrepreneurial experience and how it’s similar to being a lifelong artist.

Chatting about education and how Steve found that for him the best education was business was a really interesting part of the conversation. We discuss how to get clarity over your ideas, and why entrepreneurship may be the best lifestyle for many of us. The fact that Steve simply can not work in an environment with a boss was a very interesting thing to learn about as well. For many of us we have the same ideas, but don’t take that leap.

We hear about his latest venture, “Bunking” which is a marketplace for shared living and travel of like-minded people. And we even learn about the fact that Steve and their family lost a son to addiction, something that he struggled with, but used as fuel to keep pushing as well. It’s tough to summarize an episode, because listening is always the best way to take it all in. There were many great moments, hope you enjoy!

Memorable Quotes

“There's no grand plan, I just kind of find problems in life and then work to solve them.”

“If I look at myself and the way I was brought up, you don't even know good from bad.”

“I'm not an artist, but I can imagine they love painting pictures and they get right into it. They have a vision and they want to see it through. I think an entrepreneur is a lot like that. We get this vision, we get excited and we want to see it through.”

“It's a gift not wanting a boss.”

6 Things To Keep In Mind On Your Entrepreneurial Journey

There are different opinions, but loving what you do is a huge part of it. Loving what you do will allow you to be persistent and creative throughout the journey.
Be an artist. Create your art by diving deep into problems you can solve.
Be realistic and simple with the first business. What is a problem people have, will they pay you to solve it? Solve it, and keep solving it.
Enjoy the excitement and energy of appreciating that collecting money is a matter of being rewarded fairly for helping people with their problems.
Realize that a lot of other people’s success took way longer than you think, so don’t compare yourself to their path.
Remember that the more you want, the tougher it will get, so be prepared to overcome challenges.

Guest Bio

Steve was 15 years old when he launched his first company. He is currently the CEO and founder of Bunking. The company provides a marketplace and community to help people create shared living and travel experiences.

He has a wealth of knowledge and truly understands the value of creating world class software, building stellar teams, and connecting communities around the world by providing everyone with equal access to online marketplaces. He is a tremendous speaker and retreat leader in the world of entrepreneurship as well, especially for youth.

Having accumulated over 30 years of experience in building companies that have employed thousands and generated over $750 million in lifetime sales, Steve has had success in multiple industries including software, marketplaces, services, and rentals. But, he has also learned from failure and tragedy as much as triumph and is a great example of someone who lives that Just Keep Learning life.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

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Alban Brooke On Homeschool, Podcasting And Marketing

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Alban Brooke, Justin Nolan, Justtries) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 15:22:05 +0000

Alban shares his take on education and lets us know about growing up as a homeschool student. We talked about the importance of learning as opposed to the specific logistics. It’s pretty clear that homeschool really was a great fit for him. The main reason was because he was able to start with his interests and work out from there. The lessons here are definitely helpful when it comes to being a lifelong learner.

This episode provides a great example of how important it is to staty patient when it comes to figuring out your path, or paths in life. We talked a bit about self awareness and decision making when it comes to careers. Alban started out as a teacher and a lawyer, but once he realized that the things he really wants in a career are less likely to be accomplished in these fields. He wanted to find a better balance between being dedicated to a career and the experiences he could have in other areas of his life. So, he pivoted. Inspired by roommates in the tech industry he set his sights on a similar path.

It was fun getting into this concept of being self aware and how the answers are different for everyone. Alban tells us about coming to terms with the fact that he does below average work when there is less interest. He’s not that person that can just trick him self into doing something that is useless, or un interesting. In contrast, he is more likely above average when it comes to doing work that is of high interest to him.

Many people get hooked by the golden handcuffs, but Alban left some short term money on the table to pursue things that were more intrinsically motivating to him. His path, for now, more specifically ended up being in the podcast niche. Alban became the head of marketing at Buzzsprout. He tells us about the company origin story, values and how he first became involved. We also learned the tips he would give someone starting a podcast for the first time.

Alban is a genius when it comes to marketing and sharing a brand story, especially for podcasting, so there couldn’t be a better guest for the just keep learning show. He told us about head fake learning and marketing through educational content as opposed to just advertising. At Buzzsprout specifically this is about making podcasting as user friendly as possible. The goal should be for anyone and everyone to be able to upload consistently without any barriers. And he broke down the specific steps that he would take to start a new show and make it more shareable.

He then shares his own origin story about getting into podcasting in general. The file size was something that was of great benefit when it came to consuming content while travelling the world. We hear about some shows that he listened to back in the day. We also get a glimpse as to why he has such a passion for the medium. Essentially, Alban is someone who appreciates the depth of relationships and the ability to use audio to build a connection is like no other platform. And, he even goes through his current podcast app to share recommendations of shows that he appreciates today.

One of the most interesting and valuable things was hearing the common sense approach Alban takes to helping someone start with a show. He considers it a red flag when he gets the question, what's the most popular type of show to start? It’s clear the answer would be true crime, or comedy, because they get the most listens. But the most important question to ask is what are you motivated to share, or learn? That’s the type of show to start.

It’s always tough to summarize all of the great moments in a full episode. For example, Alban was homeschooled, grew up in a family in the legal field, but broke that trend, became a tech marketing guru and has so much wisdom behind what he shares in this episode. As always, we got a bit vulnerable, discussed achievements, goal setting and how to just keep learning.

Memorable Quotes

“Home schooling was a lot of leaning into the areas that you enjoyed and finding new ways to explore the areas that you didn't.”

“I was clear law would afford me a healthy salary. But it would cost me a lot of time, a lot of experiences. And I'd miss out on things I really wanted to be doing in life. And it wasn't the trade I wanted to make.”

“It doesn't have to be a large group of people for you to find a core audience that's going to love your show. A lot of the best shows I've seen are people who are just totally tapping into what makes them them, and approaching that topic they enjoy in a unique way.”

9 Reminders For Growing A Successful Podcast

Don’t worry about virality, trying to be like another podcaster, or trending topics when it comes to picking a topic for your show.
Choose a niche topic that is of high interest, importance and passion to you, that you could build a community around and see yourself growing for a long time.
Choose a style by knowing your personality type and what you think will serve the audience best. An interview show, allows for the guest to carry the bulk of creating content, but requires the upfront research and networking by the host. A round table show is nice for bouncing conversations off of a few regulars, but can take a lot of coordinating in the moment of creating. It can be nice to split these shows into themed segments, much like a talk show, or news channel does. And then you have scripted fiction, or non-fiction shows that tell a story and are typically rehearsed, recited and well produced.
Build the foundation for your shows success on the brand consistency by building trust and following through consistently with your audience. When it comes to artwork, timing, styles and content be as seamless as possible.
Find ways to build traffic and attention. It starts with uploading to as many podcast directories as possible. There are plenty of successful platforms beyond the big few, so make sure the show is every it can be. Beyond directories use social media to create micro content of clips that are both from and promote the show. You could also purchase ads within podcasting apps to get people to know that it exists. And be a guest on other shows.
Make sure your brand messaging is very clear when it comes to defining and sharing who should be a listener on your who. What is the hook, story and offer for the show that will make people want to tune in and want to share it with others.
Put in the right amount of research and preparation. If you are positioning yourself as an expert, teaching and informing, make sure you actually know what you’re talking about. If you are interviewing someone, be sure you find your balance between to pre-scriptive and free flowing conversation.
Build your audience like a family. Keep in mind the fact that podcasts are driven by word of mouth. The more you build community and shareability, the more success and growth you will see. A community of people who look forward to the upload time is extremely valuable.
Finally, share your art, and keep going. Don’t just wave a flag one time saying you created a cool show. Share it at every type and time of opportunity you have because you know that it can help people. And if you still have a desire for the show to succeed, keep going. There will be times you want to give up, but if it’s important enough to you, just keep creating and don’t worry about the results.

Guest Bio

Alban Brooke is a stoic optimist, who grew up having only gone to school one year in the eighth grade. His experience as a child who was homeschooled layed a strong foundation for self learning and entrepreneurship. In his professional career he has been a teacher, attorney, and now the head of marketing at Buzzsprout.

His interests are science fiction, leadership, marketing, SaaS, and podcasting. His podcasting guide has been read over a million times and he co-hosts two podcasts “Buzzcast” and “How to Start a Podcast.” He lives in Jacksonville Beach, Florida with his wife and daughter. In terms of connecting with Alban, there is no better place than Twitter where he shares tremendous threads and micro blogs to help all of us succeed as show hosts.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

FOLLOW Alban
Twitter - @AlbanBrooke

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Blacka Di Danca on Releasing Music, Dancing And Success As A Creative Entrepreneur

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Blacka, Blacka Di Danca, Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 20:40:55 +0000

Blacka opened up about how this world is working through us, that we are all part of a purpose much greater than ourselves. When you pursue your dreams, it’s not the saying of you’ll never work a day in your life. It really is a lot of work, but the work is a lot more worth it. This whole pursuit is far bigger than us, than Blacka. Our goals, our purpose is bigger than ourselves.

He talks about the cliche of a dancer when asked how long they’ve been doing it being their “whole life”. But, in his case this is very much the case. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York he was always raised on that Carribean culture of dance and music. In fact his close family was a popular group called New Kingston. He tells the story of getting more formally into dance and how it too started young, but really lead to a life long journey of learning everything about the art form that brought him to incredible places of success.

Even though he was the breadwinner for the family, he shares how he made the tough decision to chase his dreams. The decision was made easier as he realized how much he hated the idea of living with regret and that he at least wanted to know that he had true answers as to whether it was possible to make a living doing what he loved. This is the key to chasing our big dreams.

Blacka is a very philosophical leader in the creative and social media space whether he fully recognizes it or not. We talked about how poetic his responses can be. We also discussed how time does not truly exist and the fact that perfection is death. He shared that life goals are not about doing things perfect. Rather we should do things with integrity, and adjust up as we improve.

Blacka really truly is a team player, which is evidenced by his NFT company as well. In many ways it is built around giving back. He does this by providing practical projects to companies who may be new to Web 3. For example, their venture Non-Fungible Tampons is geared toward alleviating the challenges people face around period poverty.

Blacka started to realize the time, energy and resources he put into helping other artists succeed, even though it was fun, didn’t come back to him as the dancer, or choreographer. So, because he grew up around music as well, he began publishing his own music., so royalties from the music itself could support his career too. Since he already had fans all over the world, the success of his records came pretty quickly. The buss down challenge that came from one of his records became viral and people were balancing things on their heads to his music. He shares how a challenge like this can really ignite the sharing of music, and bring together a community of supporters.

There was so much packed into this episode it’s hard to summarize. For example Blacka even has his own shoe line, so we talked about how to get started in that industry too. Dealing with adversity and seeing the upside to struggles was a big part of us covering his recent struggles with post concussion syndrome and having to take some time off from his passions. We got into lifelong learning, as well as goals we have for the future and why we do what we do.

Memorable Quotes

“Perfection is death”

“Life is just about networking and meeting people”

“There is no I in Team, no matter if you spell it forward or backward."

Key To Marketing Your Brand

Identify your brand tones and when you want to use them. Know when to be serious, sympathetic, comedic or teach.
Be aware of how you want to come across and how your audience is perceiving your message.
Know your brands “why”, what is your mission and purpose?
Know what value people gain from supporting your brand, what does your community get?
Think of your brand as something you want to see in every grocery store, if it’s digital, you should aim to be able to see it all over the internet.
Don’t get too hung up on supply and demand, or trends. Always be your authentic self. We shouldn’t be having to act on, and off when building a brand, everything builds through you, so be sure it’s sustainable.

How To Succeed As A Musician

Interact with the audience that you want to build before you release the music.
As you build a community, involve them in the construction of songs, art and have them looking forward to upcoming music.
Give, give, give, give, give and then release music and seek support.
Don’t underestimate the art work of music. Create artwork for your single thinking about how it speaks to your brand values and that particular track.
If you’re able to create video, adding that can really increase the interest and shareability of your audience, so find ways to create videos to accompany your music.
Engage your audience by increasing emotion and attracting their senses, ears hearing great tunes, eyes seeing good visuals, heart holding nice feelings.
Build your community by getting down into the trenches with your fans, off the stage and into the audience, build connection and trust by scaling the unscaleable of commenting back, having discussions and providing them with opportunities to connect to you.
Release your music, and then make and release some more.

Memorable Quotes
“Sometimes you just have to jump without a parachute and figure it out along the way, especially for young people.”

“I just like doing what's fun in life. This is literally your life. If you're working at a job that you don't like you could just quit and get another one. It's not that hard, but people make it hard on themselves, they create these mental roadblocks.”

“I kind of worry for some people that get enticed by the idea of making money in the NFT space, rushing into things, focusing on money, and not worrying about passwords, or security.”

Guest Bio
Blacka Di Danca is an American artist, actor and choreographer. He tours regularly all around the world. Blacka's talent has led to work with some of the top names in the music industry. He has choreographed and been featured in music videos for Major Lazer, Rvssian, J Balvin, Farruko, Shenseea, Tyga, Janet Jackson, Nicky Jam, Anuel AA, Rihanna, Cardi B, El Alfa, Drake, A$AP Rocky, and Davido.

Blacka was featured in The New York Times, The Jamaica Star, The Jamaica Gleaner, The Source magazine and has appeared on BET, MTV, Fuse TV and CBS TV. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Blacka grew up in a Caribbean household in Crown Heights. Dancehall, reggae, soca and calypso music has always been a part of his life.

In 2003, he discovered Passa Passa Dance Festival from Kingston, Jamaica. Since then Blacka partied nightly in local clubs and street events through Brooklyn building a name for himself. In early 2008, he was booked for the first time to perform professionally in Virginia.

In 2011, Blacka left his full-time job as a doorman at Columbia University to further pursue his dreams. He began travelling the world performing and teaching choreography and spreading dance hall culture.

Since 2016, Blacka announced a new partnership with Red Bull, starting released his own music and bridging his skills into Web3 and the NFT space.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

FOLLOW Blacka
Website - BlackaDiDanca HOME
Twitter - @BLACKAdidanca
Instagram - @Blacka

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Jennifer Sutto on Blockchain, NFTs and Creating In Web 3

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 19:15:48 +0000

Jenny is someone who really understands how to pivot, keep learning and capitalize on new opportunities. She is great at understanding the creative and design process as it relates to creating content and business goals. She has built many different versions of her own personal brand. She’s written books, created podcasts, built e-commerce stores and more.

She is a tremendous example of building trust with your audience by being true to yourself. Alongside her sister she has successfully built a number of different followings by focusing on camaraderie and serving her audience.

We talked a lot about how she first got into business. Even though she went to college and has worked corporate 9 to 5’s she had a feeling that she wanted to be an entrepreneur. A mentor helped her make that decision by telling her to believe in herself, take the jump and build a parachute on the way down.

She has a strength of identifying trends and deciding to double down on areas that are currently working. This goes for social media success, as well as entrepreneurship. She and her sister, Stephanie leveraged social media to scale a successful glitter, ecommerce business. At the same time she knows how to prioritize, because she retired from Tik Tok, their most lucrative platform to focus full time on NFT’s and Twitter.

While it might seem like NFT’s have been around for a while because they became such a viral buzzword in the last year, they are still in early stages of adoption. Yet, she has been active in this aspect of Web 3 for quite some time. Jenny is building a successful brand tied to the blockchain and is both an avid collector and content creator in the space. She shares about how she got into NFTs through dapper labs NBA Topshot.

We talked about Web3 definitions, like NFT, blockchain and acronyms such as “WAGMI”. We also got into her current take on the NFT market, how she evaluates projects and what she predicts in the future of the space.

Jenny shared all about the possibilities that Non Fungible Tokens bring beyond just the art. There are monetary, investment vehicles, as well as simply proof of ownership, status symbols, access, and membership. We also discussed the NFT podcast she co-hosts and whether or not she has plan to build her own project in the future. Chatting about the possible negatives of the space, and her worries and fears was valuable as well, especially as it relates to safety and security.

She is skilled in the area of social media, as a content creator, brand ambassador, and influencer marketing. She has experience from both sides of the equation. She has built her own audience, as well as supported her sister and other clients in building theirs, while securind brand deals. But, through her time working with Evaluate Market, she has also developed the skill set of searching for and providing brand deals to influencers.

In this episode of Just Keep Learning, we talk about education and Jenny talks about how she did go to college. While she sees some benefit to formal schooling, she felt like she was mostly going through the motions. The goal was pretty much to get the credits and move on. Outside of school however, she loves to learn and has developed a passion for self learning, especially in business. This is why she knew ultimately she wanted to be her own boss.

Safe to say that Jennifer Sutto, AKA Jenny From The Blockchain is a great leader online. She builds cool communities and would be a great mentor to those looking to scale their own dreams in the digital world. Hope you enjoy the episode!

7 Tips For Creating Content To Build Your Business

Find out what is fun for you, what are you good at, or enjoy that you can create?
Make sure you won’t give up, what would you post about everyday without wanting to give up?
What audience could your serve? Or what problem could you solve?
Find some inspiration and take note of a few styles of content you would like to create.
Don’t just create a broad platform at first. Be niche specific in the beginning as you train the algorithm to know what you are all about and build the right audience for you.
Build community, interact by going live, create engagement opportunities with contest, giveaways, and comments. Get feedback and create more of what serves people best.
Give it time, stay consistent, and give it time.

Memorable Quotes
“Sometimes you just have to jump without a parachute and figure it out along the way, especially for young people.”

“I kind of worry for some people that get enticed by the idea of making money in the NFT space, rushing into things, focusing on money, and not worrying about passwords, or security.”

Guest Bio
Jennifer Sutto went from serving in a restaurant to speaking on stages and being well known in the creative, social media and entrepreneurial space. Her business journey took off when she and her sister went to a festival and found a problem in the market for party-goers.

They created their own formula for glitter gel that doesn’t budge once it dries. They went viral on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram over the years as “the glitter twins” and scaled their ecommerce business to 5 figures in a couple years, without paid ads.

This early success allowed her to get more serious about business and she started focusing on participating in entrepreneurship conferences and events as she figured out what she would like to focus on next. She realized this is a never ending process and as such has many different business ventures.

She is currently working on a personal brand, Jenny From The Blockchain, where she serves her audience with content about Web and NFTS. She is also an author, speaker and content creator teaching people about marketing, social media and business.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

FOLLOW Jenny

Twitter - @JennyFromTheBlockchain

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Kelsey Cole on Mental Health, Marketing and Building An NFT Empire

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, Justtries, Kelsey Cole) — Fri, 27 May 2022 02:33:30 +0000

Kelsey Cole is another incredible example of putting values first when determining what to do in life. But, it wasn’t easy. It took a battle with mental illness and an existential crisis to bring about the change in career path that got her to where she is today. With a lot of experience in modern entrepreneurship and marketing, as well as life event’s she is a great mentor and role model.

At the heart of Kelsey’s work is a strong desire to help people, especially women, become financially independent and empowered to live their best lives. Whatever that may be for you specifically, because everyone has a different answer. We discuss the struggle between being a starving artist to focus with conviction on your passion versus maintaining your nine to five job. Kelsey shares her own path to going from corporate job to starting a company.

Kelsey demonstrates great bravery in the world of business. She focuses her energy in making entrepreneurship a positive space as it relates to women’s rights and mental health. In this episode she opens up about her own struggles with working in make dominated fields. As a busy person in both social media management, and cryptocurrency, she has seen her fair share of rude and innapropriate men.

She does not go into detail, but it’s worth noting that it may be upsetting for some people to hear about the things that motivate her. She is in many ways motivated by negative experiences that led her to really appreciate and advocate for the Me Too Movement. Her own abuse and traumatic events have really been a foundation for the good she tries to bring to the world.

Kelsey explains how being thorough and skeptical can really be a positive for entrepreneurs. If you have the right team and the right goals and action steps then not only will the work be more enjoyable, but it will be more successful. It also allows us to make sure that we are building things the right way. We want to make sure we trust things that we attach our names to. We don’t want to be known for being part of the snake oil that so often exists online.

Naturally, learning was a big theme that ran through the episode. Kelsey shared her formal education experience. But she also mentioned that she prefers to self learn, and there is a learning style for everyone. She personally loves to stay up to date with the news cycle, especially in business and finance. This comes from a tip from her father that everything you need to know about the market’s can be traced back to the news, for better, or worse.

In this episode of Just Keep Learning, Kelsey shares the definition of cryptocurrency, blockchain and the future of NFT’s. She also talks about building an empire, as opposed to a project in her efforts to build Yondomondo. There’s nothing to say that any NFT initiative will succeed, but at least she is trying to build a media empire through Web3 characters. She talks about how to start your own project, collaboration, and the importance of learning throughout the process.

Marketing, whether it is for personal brands, companies, shows, or projects all comes down to the same thing. It comes down to serving first. Give, give, give, give give. If you provide value as your main focus, the money will follow. Build community, build your tribe and you will reap the rewards in the best way possible. Kelsey shared that cheat code to success and many others in this incredible episode of Just Keep Learning. Hope you like it!

8 Things To Keep In Mind As A Founder

Give, give, give. In all aspects of your journey, never forget to be generous.
Join a team first. It doesn’t need to be a long time, but working within another team is a great first step because you can learn so much from other founders.
Build an engaged, family-like community.
Focus on emotional connection, service, learning from your audience and bringing value.
Identify your strengths and double down on them by making sure they are a big part of your daily effort
Identify your weaknesses and make sure you have people on your team that can compliment because they are strengths for them.
Time is money, so find your one thing, your focus and manage your time to ensure the greatest impact.
Build an empire, not just a product, project, or service, by focusing on trust, goodwill and karma over time.

Memorable Quotes

“Give. Give. Give. Give. Give. Serve first and you will reap the rewards”

“Don’t ask me what I do? Ask me why I get up in the morning?”

“When you show off the wrong things you become a target of negative energy. Be a good person and be humble throughout your journey to success.”

Guest Bio

Kelsey’s expertise is in taking complex ideas, and turning them into beloved brands that speak for themselves. She uses design and communication to open hearts and minds. The agency she co founded MVM Media provides lifestyle clients, events, and tech startups with digital ad campaigns. They’ve spent millions on behalf of clients, and made 10s of millions for clients online.

She has incredible experience having worked with brands like The Grammys, Tesla, Blockworks, TIFF, the United Nations, To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, Fable Home, Blume, bluboho, Coal & Canary, The Arrivals, Flutter, Are You Am I, Everyday Sunday, Wildcraft, ANACT, the Woobles and Hero Health.

Her early career involved marketing and advertisement for some of the world’s most recognizable brands (L'Oreal, Red Bull, Revlon) before she moved to the start up world. She got very involved in the Silicon Valley scene and saw the decentralization of the startup community as an opportunity to open her own boutique marketing agency.

She is an Entrepreneur, Investor, Speaker & Women's Rights Activist, who is also regarded as a pioneer in the blockchain space. Charitably, she works closely with the United Nation's partnership office establishing programs between the private sector, global governments and NGOs to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals with a primary focus on achieving SDG #5, Gender Equality.

She has a goal to raise awareness for the SDGs by engaging the world's biggest brands and tech companies to put real business dollars in their own enterprises towards innovation that fuels collective good.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

FOLLOW Kelsey

LinkedIn - Kelsey Cole

Twitter - TheKelseyCole

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Reach out anytime! Text your questions to JustTries at +1 (313) 710-5499

Jacky Sharma on Business, Mindset And Overcoming Adversity

Thu, 5 May 2022 17:06:10 +0000

Jacky is an inspiration to people in the areas of mental health, overcoming struggles and starting internet businesses. He shares with us all about the path that it took him to go from financial and mental struggles to being succesful in both business and building a powerful mindset.

One of his most resilient success stories, was coined going from “wheelchair to dream chair”. This stems from an incident where he was let go from work and amidst his struggles to cope he was involved in an accident that left him paralyzed.

Even though he was the most down on his luck and in financial debt more than he had ever been, and without work, not only did he overcome the 10% chance of walking again, but he also started and scaled a successful business. This launched his passion for helping people appreciate how they can own their paycheque.

Jacky shares that when he was really struggling, he was inspired by his daughter to make some changes to his own mindset. This is when he found thought gurus like Tony Robbins, Jay Shetty and John Assaraf. Learning from these three leaders about how to control your mind, emotions and achieve your dreams was a big part of turning his life around.

One of the strengths he brings to the conversation of achieving your goals is entrepreneurship. He talks about getting over the money blocks that get in the way. Understanding that once you understand how much money can lead to helping more people, then you can start to push for more and more success. Maybe doesn’t buy happiness, but the things that you can do with it can help make you and others happier.

Jacky got into social media a lot later than many people do, but in a short time he has grown quite a loyal following. So, talking all about business, how to get into content creation, building attention and monetizing your work in a simple way was a big focus of our conversation.

It can be difficult to summarize such great conversations. Throughout the episode we talked a lot about loss, mindset, collaboration and how to be a successful entrepreneur. No doubt his life experience, while at many times challenging, has become an inspiration to many.

8 Ways To Build Your Own Dream Chair As An Entrepreneur

Live with gratitude for the past, present and future, so that you can maintain the mindset that the ups and downs of this life are not happening to you, rather they are happening for you.
Do the hard work of building your tribe and nurturing that community like a family.
Always be kind and generous to people you meet because networking is key.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions and find support. Whether hired coaches, or free mentors and heroes, be sure to gain guidance from people who have been there before.
Surround yourself with people pursuing similar goals and values, which will boost your own ideas, motivation and energy.
Be consistent. It doesn’t matter so much what you could possibly do, what matters is that you do complete the most important things regularly.
Maintain your purpose and remove limiting beliefs by having a very intrinsic, “why” that is important to you.
Collaboration is the key to success. No matter the business model, or what you create, working on projects big, or small with others will help you prevent procrastination, be accountable and increase creativity.

Memorable Quotes
“Having a vision is not about perfection. It's about getting started.”

“Life is not happening to you. It's happening for you.”

“If you spend half an hour every single day before going to bed, building your side hustle for next 30, 60 or 90 days, I will guarantee you you will have a business in three months.”

Guest Bio

Published a few times in Forbers Magazine, Jaikishaan Sharma is often better known as “Jacky”. He is founder and CEO of Sharmaatricks which connects individuals interested in online business to learn and support one another. The company also connects people to money making opportunities online with the goal of helping them grow their own home based business..

Jacky also co founded an oil and perfume product line called J’YUG Australia, which sells fragrances online in the form of lotions, perfume, cologne, candles, mists and more. This was a perfect example of him combining his interest in scents with a passion for business and rolling it out.

Jacky has more than 15 years of experience in sales and marketing, and has enjoyed many executive positions throughout his career. He has worked for Australis top Energy Providers, he was CEO of successful Direct Sales Agency in Australia and started a few of his own businesses.

But in 2015, Jaikishaan hit rock-bottom when he made into an accident and got bound to the wheelchair. During this time he grew to appreciate the saying “The brighter the light, the darker the shadows.” You can go one of two ways. Either dwell in your darkness, or be inclined to spread as much light as you can.

After going through severe depression, anxiety and stress, he decided to defy the odds. He started working on his mindset and belief system which helped him to get back on his feet in 2019.

Jaikishaan took his first step in front of the same doctors who told him he has only 10% chance to walk again. Now he runs his successful businesses and helps hundreds of hardworking people around the world create their own financial freedom.

Best Modern Mobile Recording Site: Squadcast

FOLLOW Jacky:

LinkedIn - JaikishaanSharma

Instagram - @jaikishaansharma

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Jordan Elizabeth Gelber on Acting, Entrepreneurship, and Achieving Your Dreams

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Jordie Starbaby, Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Sat, 16 Apr 2022 19:00:35 +0000

Jordan, aka Jordie Starbaby talks about breaking free of the traditional career mindset. She mentions one of her favorite lines from a movie is “you don’t come here to get jobs, you come here to create them.” It was this mindset that has led Jordan to being that badass boss beauty type throughout her entire career.

She talks about growing up with a few childhood challenges. WIth regards to mental health, she battled depression and being able to maintain attention in school. Like anyone with a silver lining mindset though, she maintains that these struggles have built a lot of her character. Much of her attitude also came from being an only child, moving as a kid and the bullying that came along with simply trying to fit in at school.

Jordan shared all about the school for performing arts that she attended. This school required a lot of sacrifice and commitment to attend because it was hours away. But, it was a huge factor in her development of creative confidence, an increasing interest in the arts and most importantly healthy social interactions. She made more friends and realized maybe she wasn’t the outcast that she thought she was at her homeschool. She also has a strong appreciation for the glaring differences between education and learning.

She is an incredible role model for anyone interested in building a business, or storytelling. On the entrepreneurial side of her life, she has created her own fashion shows, social media marketing services, and media distribution platforms. On the more traditional art side she is a credited actor, writer and producer of both film and theater.

Making the move from rural Connecticut to the big apple was one of those fairytale stories of focus for someone who loves to shine under the bright lights. There’s no doubt that she will keep busy building more and more business and creative ventures. But, the most exciting part is that she’s always open to helping others achieve their big dreams too.

One of her areas of expertise is in making social media and content creation simple for people who are both new and experienced. She listed the reasons she likes and dislikes the most popular social media platforms and shared a case study of why it’s so valuable to invest time on LinkedIn especially today.

Expertise doesn't have to be limited to business tips. Throughout the episode Jordan gave some amazing insight into dealing with a scattered mind. She shared some of her tips and tricks for keeping your ideas in check and making progress when you start to feel overwhelmed.

10 Ways To Prevent Feeling Overwhelmed

Seek help if you need it. There is no weakness in going to therapy. Counseling and coaching can be proactive medicine as part of a self care routine.
Accept that a certain level of depression and attention deficit can be a normal part of your character. But, also appreciate that there are actions specific to you that you can take to give yourself the best chance of thriving, not just surviving.
Be proactive when planning ahead. Think in terms of projects and steps. Chunk larger tasks into smaller steps by working backwards from the end goal and work only on the next step at a time.
Write down your ideas. Not because it’s a to-do list, or a diary, or a checklist per se, but simply because taking things into the physical written world helps to de clutter your mind.
Create and use your second brain. This one is about writing, or typing things into action boards, checklists, and spreadsheets to keep track of your most important plans and data.
Don’t rely on motivation, or energy. Instead rely on clarity, systems and habits in order to get your most valuable, high priority work done. Don’t worry about the other stuff.
Make your systems visible. If it’s a goal board, save it on the background of your phone. A habit chart should be on a wall that’s visible multiple times per day. If you are creating a couple of “to-do” items for the day, put them on sticky notes.
Celebrate small victories and accomplishments. The joy can not be in the final destination. You must find ways like checking things off, or scrapping your sticky notes, or ringing a bell, or dancing to a song every time you make the smallest of milestones so that you celebrate the entire process toward the end goal of your projects.
Build a routine and daily schedule that keeps you on task and not confused about what you are supposed to be working on. This starts with selecting the right priority and setting your schedule accordingly.
Find personal time for you, where you can check out of the project. When you are at work, be fully at work. When you are at play, or with friends and family, be fully present there. The idea of “balance” is a myth. Be fully unbalanced toward your current priority in the moment.

Memorable Quotes
“Starting a business is not for the faint of heart. A lot of people have glamorized being an entrepreneur without intake on what it means to be an entrepreneur.”

“Be honest about what your goals are and what is your big picture idea? And then go backwards from there”

“I like pink, but I'll punch you in the face if you mess with me, because I’m not girly, but I’m not a tomboy.”

Guest Bio
Most importantly she is a generous person who helps others achieve their dreams too. Jordan Elizabeth Gelber aka Jordie Starbaby is an award-winning actress, producer and creative business strategist. She is the CEO of Starbaby Enterprises, a marketing and production firm specializing in creating and curating content at a grassroots level. Beyond formal experience she is a creative storyteller and social media guru.

Starbaby Enterprises has a highly selective client roster, geared towards young and experienced professionals in both the entertainment and creative industries, and beyond. Jordan has personally launched several startups, working directly with CEOs, and expanding their businesses from $1K-$2M in 6 months through the power of content creation and digital marketing.

Additionally, Jordan and has produced several original productions yielding over 20 million international viewers. With her decade of experience in Digital Marketing and content creation, combined with the power of Linkedin and social media outreach, Jordan has scaled businesses in multiple verticals to connect to their desired marketplace, achieve more exposure, and receive funding, distribution, or sponsorship for their projects.

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Sister Helen Prejean On The Death Penalty, Compassion and Lifelong Learning

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 11:41:06 +0000

Episode Notes
Helen tells the story of how she first became involved in working with inmates on death row. She let’s us hear how she got to know her first few clients and how tough it was. At times Helen chokes up thinking about the things she witnessed in her career that brought her to work with many people she would get to know quite well and then have to watch them be put to death in the electric chair.

Her experiences on death row lead her to a life mission of trying to abolish the death penalty. It’s the old adage that while the crimes people commit are horrendous, two wrongs don’t make a right. Furthermore, there is a deep layer of systemic racism, poverty, and mental illness that creates a socio-economic link to those who are likely to end up on death row.

The fact the death penalty was such a hot topic, combined with her personal experience, Sister Helen knew it was part of her mission to write a book in order to educate the public. Dead Man Walking was not only a best selling book, but it also went on to become an academy award-winning film, and popular theater play.

Helen is a great role model for creating deep, intrinsic meaning in your work. She has been working tirelessly since the 1980’s toward educating people about murder, the death penalty, and compassion.

She speaks openly in the episode about her struggles while doing this line of work and shares that the most challenging hurdle was figuring out how to support victim’s families. While it has been a lifelong seesaw, with many conflicts, no one could argue that she has done absolutely incredible work to remind all of us how we should strive to live our best lives.

Sister Helen is an incredible storyteller, inspirational speaker, and teacher. While we spent the majority of time discussing death row and what it takes to have compassion for someone who has committed such terrible crimes, we also touched on a number of other subjects. We talked about the importance of learning, how to help people regain their lives if they’re given a second chance after jail, and how similar we are, no matter what people see on the outside.

10 Things To Keep In Mind When It Comes To Compassion

We are all 99.9% identical. This connection between people is the secret of life. It is what makes everything hum and come to life.
Empathy is an appreciation for others. You can not be “in their shoes”. You haven't been through what they've been through. You can hear what they’re saying and feel with you. You can walk with them, and go through things with them.
Keep your promises. Most people who require forgiveness in the first place have trouble being trustworthy. Be sure to only make promises that you can keep. Keep your work, show consistency and do not waiver as you build trust.
Be unconditional in your forgiveness. The root of “forgive” is the Latin word “perdonare,” meaning “to give completely, without reservation”. There is no need to hold back. Hurtful acts and forgiveness are two separate events.
Be patient in waiting for “sorry”. The forgiver chooses when they feel sorry. Everyone heals according to their own timeline. You do not choose when someone forgives you. So be prepared to wait. But you can choose to forgive others and steer toward peace immediately.
Every relationship is mutual. We’re not the wonderful, generous people, forgiving the poor, weak, wounded human beings. They give us a lot too. All human exchanges provide mutual gifts in some way.
Create programs, groups, classes, or partnerships that allow for people to be on a similar playing field. There is so much unlevel ground and unfair advantages in society. Given equal circumstances you would be tested in a way that would lead you to do that too. So level the playing field when you forgive and get to know someone.
Rewards and punishment won’t change the root cause of behavior. We must strive to keep innocent people safe. And, we must hold people accountable. The question is “what does accountability look like?” How do we define accountability? Remember that the wrongdoing is separate from the best course of action for next steps.
Everyone has a reason, but not an excuse for their behavior. Some may have a learning disability, trauma, addiction, mental illness, poverty, lack of sleep, malnutrition, or immaturity. If your brain's ability for effective judgment is impaired. It’s impaired, as simple as that.
Give everyone a voice and choice. There is dignity simply in being human. Not because of any results, or circumstances. But, simply in being human we should have input into our lives and decision making.

Memorable Quotes
“Find work and purpose in your life and do what you love. Do what you love. Let what you love be what you do to find purpose and do what you love. Not to try to make a lot of money and all that. Do what you love.”

“Over 90% of people on death row were abused as kids. I mean, that's massive. And then one day they take it out on some innocent victim.”

“When people rub us the wrong way, always be asking, what am I supposed to learn? What is this life event teaching me? What can I learn from this? That's huge.”

Guest Bio

Sister Helen Prejean is known around the world for her tireless work against the death penalty. She has been instrumental in sparking national dialogue on capital punishment and in shaping vigorous opposition to stop executions and start societal compassion.

In 1982, after moving into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans in order to live and work with the poor, Sister Helen became the spiritual advisor to death row inmates. After witnessing executions, she realized that this lethal ritual would remain unchallenged unless its secrecy was stripped away.

She wrote a book, “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States”. Dead Man Walking hit the shelves when national support for the death penalty was close to 90%. The book ignited a national debate on capital punishment and inspired an Academy Award-winning movie, a play, and an opera.

Sister Helen continues her work, dividing her time between educating the public, campaigning against the death penalty, counseling individual death row prisoners, and working with murder victims’ family members. She also embarked on a speaking tour that continues to this day.

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Rick Kitagawa On Course Creation, Business And Creative Confidence

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Rick Kitagawa) — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 01:15:21 +0000

Rick Kitagawa is considered an Inner Monster Wrangler. According to his experiences, his greatest strength is helping people wrangle that monster that holds us all back. He is great at helping people with imposter syndrome and achieving their big dreams. He coaches leaders, entrepreneurs and creatives to build confidence and strategies for success.

Rick shares a bit about his upbringing and how it might not exactly be what people would think. We also touch on the debate about whether people should go to college, or not. Over the years, whether in business, social, or art, he has gone from scared of being judged, to being completely open about his own successes and failures.

In this episode, we talked about content creation, especially when it comes to building courses and educational material. We discuss confidence, creativity, building business and how to stop stealing dreams from people. With so much experience and an appreciation for all forms of creativity and lifelong learning, Rick Kitigawa is the perfect JKL guest.

Rick is a founder, speaker, NFT creator, business consultant, storyteller and artist. He is the type of person that will help make anyone’s life better just by working with him in any capacity. Just an all around really good person.

Keep These Things In Mind When Creating Content And Courses

There are a ton of snake oil salesmen in the online business world. But this is no reason to give up on your dream of being an educational leader in online business. It is important that we have more good people creating courses and content now more than ever before. Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your own business courses and content:

Give it away. Give away ninety plus percent of your effort. The more we serve, the more we will get in return, but only if we truly serve first. Don’t stress about what to monetize, or not. Give it away and then when the time comes to build a strategy to monetize, you will know.
Define what you’ll teach. We don’t have to focus on a niche in our lives overall, but being able to define a focus for what you want to teach people is really important. Each course, or mini business will have a specific focus. You can decide what your focus will be either by expertise, interests, or a combination of both.
Ask your community. One of the most important ways that we can decide our vision for content we create, or products and services we sell is by asking our audience what they have questions about.
People who pay are more likely to pay attention. It is really helpful to give away a lot of free content because let’s face it, the ability to learn in today’s day and age should be free. But, don’t underestimate the fact that some people need to put skin in the game in order to actually take the material, or course seriously.
Have a price that suits your plan. You do not have to give into the idea that everything should be super expensive that you sell in order for it to be valued. But, it is also reasonable to have premium prices. It all comes down to knowing who you want to serve, what is the best price for them to pay and appreciating that when you take in revenue you can return it right back into surviving your community even better. So you may have a specific price plan for your customers, or you may have a value ladder that is accessible to anyone.
Cater courses and content to different learning styles. Similar to the changing in price, if you want to help more people then make sure you teach with different methods. You may need to create audio, video, visual, and written content to help people learn in the way they learn best, at that moment.
Engage people where they are at. Craft ways to ensure that there are equal entry points to the curriculum and content you are creating. Either split up your offers so that it is geared towards specific expertise and abilities. Or create the ability for the content to be flexible within it. Either way the progress should be individualized.
Create unscalable learning moments. Synchronous learning opportunities, like real time projects, face to face meetings and live discussions may not be overly efficient when it comes to speed and convenience. But, in many cases these challenges, and peer to peer interactions are extremely valuable to the best learning. So make sure you have at least some live time opportunities and a community element. The community could exist in a group, or a channel, where people are able to work together whenever they need some peer interaction.
Post clear instructions. When it comes to making sure people understand things like what your content can teach them, how to buy, how to succeed and how to follow the programs, don’t assume it is easy to figure out. Test this with your community, take constructive criticism, but more importantly, over communicate and constantly make it easier and easier for learners to succeed.
Define due dates. It’s really common in such a fast pace world that we also fail to get things done on time. If you have your content and courses beautifully laid out, with clear teaching, but no due dates then it will be too easy for people to set it aside and forget about it. Even if your content is really engaging, be sure to embed deadlines that help people stay on track to the next micro goal, one at a time.

Memorable Quotes
“Do the hard work of building an audience.”

“We see generosity as giving something away, which is good too. But, it can also be generous to charge people. For one, you honor the work by allowing yourself to continue doing this work. And two, when there's no skin in the game, no investment from the participant, they have a much higher chance of giving up, yet you know success is helpful to them.”

“Coaching is so valuable because it's personalized and in real time, as opposed to having a more prescriptive tone. Podcasts, YouTube, books, they’re great. But, they're structured for many people. When I'm coming up against something personal, I'd rather have someone tailor their expertise and knowledge to me.”

Guest Bio

Rick is the founder of Kaiju Coaching. He considers himself an inner monster wrangler because he coaches leaders and creatives (which he believes includes everyone) to wrangle their Inner Monsters and transform them from fierce enemies to trusted confidants.

As a visual artist, coach, entrepreneur, and professor, he has dealt a lot with Impostor Syndrome. Pretty much everything he does requires dealing with fear, uncertainty, and the judgment of others.

He built Kaiju Coaching to help others struggling with the same fears, doubts, and Inner Monsters that he’s wrestled with all his life. Rick is also a professor for traditional college focusing on similar topics with an emphasis on business for creatives.

He is also Co-Founder of Spotlight Trust, a leadership development partner that helps organizations harness the power of trust to become more human, creative, adaptive, and effective. They do this through content creation, learning materials, coaching and consulting workshops to help your team develop more trust and empathy.

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Parker Palmer On Being An Author And Creating Social Change

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Parker Palmer) — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:49:19 +0000

We have so many people on this show that are passionate about helping others. But, nobody can say they have more experience with serving people than Parker Palmer. One of his core beliefs is that everyone, no matter the industry, or position should think more and more like community organizers.

In this episode, we talked about privilege, educational challenges, mental health and living an undivided life. At 83 years old, Parker has a ton of wisdom to share with us about our own mortality and how to live our best life. We get into some challenging discussions on depression and the importance of finding a support system to lean on in tough times.

Parker is the author of ten books. Even though his big book writing career is winding down he still hosts an author page with a huge audience. His audience tunes in daily to read his short form stories, poetry and commentary. It’s clear that Parker knows how to bring people together to make life more enjoyable and impactful.

One of the most interesting things that connects Parker to the Just Keep Learning audience is his lifelong passion for staying curious. He calls it staying “baffled” and it is the foundation of all of his writing and workshops. Instead of seeking conclusions, how can we seek more questions?

He has been a speaker, activist and retreat leader since he started his entrepreneurial journey. The leadership project named him one of the Top 30 Most Influential Leaders In Higher Education, based on his learning and teachings about social change.

Social Impact Starts Within

Parker explains how social impact really is an inside job. If we take care of ourselves first, then we will be able to help others. Reinforcing our own mindset and crafting and building our own values must come first. If we do this right, then naturally we will want to have an impact on others. We will be more motivated and capable of creating meaningful change in society. This is why it is not selfish to help yourself first.

Oftentimes we think of social justice and reform as massive acts of courage. But, Parker reminds us that change truthfully happens with small, regular, meaningful acts of bravery. One such example is getting better and better at being anti-racist. As two white males a very important thing we can do is have conversations about things such as white supremacy and privilege.

Having conversations and dialogue about our differences should be the main goal. Instead of always arguing over who is right and wrong, we should do the difficult internal work to be accepting of others. To embrace diversity. Parker shares a great comparison between mono culture amongst humans and crops. It is vital that we strive to be diverse, instead of the same. But, without control over our own, internal pride and emotions we can’t begin to have this conversation.

Having studied societal leaders, he knows a great deal about people who choose to live a life of integrity and identity. Parker shares the term “undivided life” meaning you are fully focused on your mission.

An example he gives of someone focused on their missions, is Rosa Parks. Parker realized that people who learned to pursue their main focus have recalibrated punishment and threats. They have begun to realize that the risks and pain of not pursuing their calling are greater than the possible punishment of pursuing it.

Ways That We Could Improve Education

Education is facing the time for the biggest reform in the last one hundred years. As someone who is passionate about education, Parker has seen a lot of different things come and go in the industry. Here are a few great points he makes about what would be good to see in education today.

The flipped classroom. Searching for knowledge and information seeking can be done on your own time. But, when able to have time together, focus on applying the learning in ways that require collaboration, individualization and feedback.
Create more cloud based schools. How can we create learning opportunities that span beyond geography. The technology exists that we can have the absolute best teachers on a subject educating from anywhere in the world. By connecting students to experts they are most interested in learning from, you have a natural, intrinsic connection to commitment and engagement.
Using apprenticeships, mentorships and internships as an increasingly valid way of teaching. They shouldn’t just be add ons to the things we learn. Instead, for those who learn well in this environment, we should use it as a primary educational tool.
Understanding the difference between the mind and the brain. We all have a brain, but we all have very different minds. How can we as educators, parents and coaches learn to provide opportunities for all types of minds. Intelligence comes in many forms and for some reason we put an emphasis on being academically intelligent. In reality all of the other intelligences should be equally represented in our educational institutions.
Collaborate instead of compete. People may be in denial. But, we are far better off at working together instead of alone. There is no denying that competition can be healthy. But, for the most part we should aim to work together. We should create partnerships and joint ventures based on abundance, as opposed to battling with a scarcity mindset.

Becoming A Writer

Being an author can seem like a tough industry to succeed in, but it doesn’t need to be. It is all about having perspective, a plan and being consistent. Parker has created ten books that served his audience over the last fifty years. When it comes to writing, there are three main things that he wanted to remind us about.

Don’t wait for any gatekeepers. There are tons of blogging and newsletter creation platforms. And you need not have a publisher, attorney, or marketer if you don’t want to. There is no barrier to getting started. Create a blog, newsletter, author page, portfolio, or even something like medium, or twitter and get writing! As you continue to write and share through short form, you will start to craft a framework for a larger book if that is an interest of yours. Don’t wait for some perfect time either. If you have a busy lifestyle, you can have a huge impact in just a couple of minutes per day.

If you do love writing, then give it away. When you are starting out, make sure your work is free. Don’t start out as a first time writer waiting for a book deal, or trying out different ways to monetize your audience. The main goal is to have an impact on others. You want to understand your target audience, build a community and get feedback. The money will come if you are having an impact and building this community.

Build multiple streams of income. As you create your writing practice, you will have to find ways to make money beyond book sales. Being an author is a great way to network, or build an audience. But, for most writers the writing itself is not enough to be your only revenue source. Find other ways to monetize. Such as speaking, guest posting, advertising, brand deals, sponsorships, memberships, or other products and services.

A lack of certainty is what makes great creative writers. When it comes to crafting a story and deciding what to write about, focus on questions. We often give a lot of credit to writing about what we do know. But the more valuable, emotional, interesting conversations often come from questions. What really interests you? Write about the questions you have. As you dig deep into those questions you will develop more and more questions. Be increasingly baffled and curious. Keep going, and write about those exciting things that you do not know, but want to learn more about.

Memorable Quotes

“All meaningful forms of social change are built upon a million million million small acts, and everyone we can take makes a difference.”

“We treat cognitive capacity as the highest form of intelligence. Artistic intelligence, relational intelligence, bodily intelligence, problem-solving intelligence. They aren't honored in our school system. They ought to be.”

“People who live an undivided life have come to the realization that they no longer want to conform. Day by day they have decided they don’t want to pretend on the outside. They would rather act in a way that reflects tParker: I believe that in order to write or teach, well, you have to trust your not knowing, you have to trust your not knowing.heir inner being. Sure, society wants to keep us in place. But, no punishment anyone can lay on me could possibly be greater than the punishment I lay upon myself by conspiring in my own diminishment. Yeah, the world around wants to diminish us, especially at those points where we slam into all of the things that people of color, LGBTQ Plus folk, women around the world are slamming into all the time. But to conspire in your own diminishment is to double down on what the world is, that dehumanization that the world is trying to work on you. And part of the journey in life is to get to a point where you just say, No, I'm not going to do that anymore, and you begin to show up in the world more and more as yourself. ”

“I can't imagine a sadder way to die than with the knowledge that I never really turned up in this world as my true self that I was always hiding it out, that I refused ever to take the risk of bringing forward my truth.”

“I believe that in order to write or teach well, you have to trust your not knowing, you have to trust your not knowing.

“I'm learning how to get old and I'm working on learning how to die. That's not a morbid question for me. That's a life-giving question. Death is part of life. And to live fully, you have to learn how to die as well. So it's a creative, life-giving question for me.”

A Note On Legacy From Parker Palmer

“I’m at an age where people have begun to ask me what I want my legacy to be. I always say, “It’s not my legacy—it’s ours.” It’s a shared legacy created by the folks who design and offer Courage & Renewal programs and the folks who participate in them.

As a writer, I’ve always wanted to “put wheels” on my ideas so people can make use of them. For the past twenty years, I’ve partnered with the Center for Courage & Renewal to do exactly that. Together we’ve created vehicles for people to ride those ideas toward life-giving destinations—inner as well as outer destinations. Our programs have allowed many people in many walks of life to develop visions and take actions that make our world a better place.

I’ve always believed that the Center’s success should be measured by its ability to attract competent, committed, caring people who are doing work that serves the human possibility. That’s exactly the kind of people we’ve attracted. So by my lights, we’ve succeeded!

And what about my writing? In my office, there are two bookcases with three shelves each. They are packed to the max with books I’ve written in various editions and translations; books for which I’ve written forewords or chapters; and periodicals for which I’ve written articles. That’s a lot of words! But for me, those words—sitting there inert on the page and shelf—are not the legacy.

A legacy is a living thing. What’s important to me is the way people have taken my words into their own lives in their own way—and then carried all of that into communities, institutions and the larger society. Without the deep, long-term partnership I’ve had with the Center for Courage & Renewal, none of that would have happened on the scale it has. I’m forever grateful for this gift of colleagues, friends and fellow travelers.

My personal legacy? I’d like it to be one of good humor, good will and generosity. I’d like it to be said that we had a lot of laughs, we extended a lot of kindness, and we built an abundant storehouse of heart-and-soul resources that anyone can draw on. I can’t imagine a better legacy than that.” - Parker J. Palmer

Guest Bio

Founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal, Parker is a world-renowned writer, speaker, and activist. He focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. His main message has been that internal, mindset work can lead to better outward social impact.

A member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker), Palmer and his wife, Sharon Palmer, live in Madison, Wisconsin. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as thirteen honorary doctorates. He is the author of ten books, including several award-winning titles, that have sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated into ten languages.

In 1998, the Leadership Project, a national survey of 10,000 educators, named Palmer one of the thirty “most influential senior leaders” in higher education and one of the ten key “agenda-setters” of the past decade.

In 2011, the Utne Reader named him one of 25 Visionaries on its annual list of “People Who are Changing the World.” In 2017, he received the Shalem Institute’s Contemplative Voices Award, given annually to an individual “who has made significant contributions to contemplative understanding, living and leadership.”

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Kyle Scott On How To Set Goals And Create Great Courses

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Kyle Scott) — Tue, 1 Feb 2022 16:38:09 +0000

Kyle Scott is one of the most passionate people we’ve ever had on the Just Keep Learning Podcast when it comes to learning himself. Throughout his entire life, as a kid, in school and within his career, he has always adopted that JKL mindset too.

In this episode, we talked about goal setting, manifestation and understanding what drives you. We also discussed some more technical components of being an entrepreneur, or business leader. Kyle has learned a lot about business from working at NBC and being Ryan Serhant’s right hand man as President of Serhant Ventures. But he is also working formally on his MBA.

There is no one one the show to date that can drop more names than Kyle could. He shares a lot of wisdom that he picked up over the course of ten years producing content for NBC. As a video journalist he interviewed the likes of Michael Phelps, William Shatner, Mel Robbins, Daymond John and many more thought leaders. One thing you’ll notice is he has a special ability to pick up a little something from everyone he meets.

He is also an avid reader and explains to the audience all about how books are the things that turn his money dial. Money dials is a concept learned from Ramit Sethi, whereby you allow yourself to restrict spending on things you don’t actually gain intrinsic joy from. But, you spend freely on the things that you do gain appreciation from. Because Kyle has read so many books, and met so many authors, he can drop a whole lot of wisdom.

We talked a lot about education and learning in general. One thing that has elevated Kyle throughout many points in his career is the ability to learn and pivot when others start to slow down. By setting goals, continually improving his mindset and staying focused he has achieved a lot in his career.

The main two things we talked about were sales and creating awesome courses. Kyle has a high level of talent and expertise in both. The most important thing that he points out is that selling is human. In order to live a good life we have to be good at sales. Moreover, the ability to sell is transferable, but if you want to build a brand and community, the ability to focus on your niche is huge! Kyle provided us some examples of sales techniques and strategies they teach in their top course, “sell it like serhant”.

When it comes to creating courses that convert we talked a lot about online education and production quality. We also discussed how important it is that the learning actually provide real world examples. When teaching someone the goal has to be to help change their behaviour. This happens by sending knowledge, but most importantly by helping them unlearn, and shift their mindset.

12 Steps To Create Awesome Online Courses

We know that education is increasingly moving online. It’s not something that will slow down, in fact it will only speed up. So, here are some of the most important steps to take in order to launch a successful online course.

Provide a balance of higher level information and nitty gritty details about how to implement what the audience should be learning.
Don’t overthink, but ensure you have good storytelling foundations. What is the beginning, middle and end of the lesson and how are you taking the listener through a narrative arc?
A talking head and whiteboard are not enough to make for a successful course.
Use language that the audience understands and can relate to in order to make sure they are connected since you are not in person.
Make sure you have clean audio. Reduce ambient noise, static and use quality microphones.
Create visual variety. Can have a talking head and board. But, you should make sure you have a medium shot of the teacher, a wide shot that shows the whole scene and closeups of drawing, writing, or talking. Add more and more production value by adding some movement.
Make the lessons engaging by connecting the importance to real life scenarios. Show how it’s actually being used in something that’s visually interesting and demonstrates application of the concept.
You need to share theory in a course, but this is a great time to add visual elements in the use of graphics. Put graphics such as key terms and quotes on top of talking head shots.
Don’t over use it, but use b-roll if it adds a visual element, while staying on brand and focus with the video.
Create lists for things like learning goals, and recaps. Keep the audience knowing sneak peaks of what’s to come, while not having the answers. In other words, share some fill in the blanks, or these 6 things are what we’ll learn and keep bringing the audience along while checking each thing off.
Always implement some style of actual practice and execution of the things the audience is learning. Learn something, implement, reflect, feedback, and repeat.
Create moments for community discussion, questions and debrief.

Memorable Quotes

“You have to believe in your product so much that it would be like a crime for your potential customers to not be able to purchase it.”

“In the course we talk about the 4 W’s to a great life in work. Why do you wake up every day? What will you do? What are you running from? And what are you working toward winning?”

“When teaching, increase engagement by creating relevant scenarios that make connections to real life. Say you’re teaching calculus. You could show the design process of a Boeing 787. Then have people take it a step further and apply the concept themselves. All of a sudden you not only have visual variety, but you have a story and a problem that needs to be solved. That is how you make learning interesting.”

Guest Bio

Kyle Scott is a powerful video journalism producer. He got his big start as a producer at NBC News, which included building his own vertical programs, such as Better, “news you can use”. He spent ten years at NBC, where he had evolving roles as a producer in digital and broadcast news, including the TODAY show, NBC Nightly News, NBC News Specials, and NBC News Digital.

He is now the president of Serhant Ventures, where he is responsible for the growth and profitability of Ryan Serhant’s (the famous real estate agent in NYC) digital product businesses.

As far as his personal brand goes, he is an expert in all things sales. In general sales knowledge, Kyle is a public speaker and content creator. Specific to Real Estate sales, he built and scaled the digital business side of Team Serhant. His focus has expanded over the years, but always revolves around content that connects with an audience interested in improving their own sales.

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Amy Blaschka On Pursuing Your Dreams, Writing And Creativity

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Amy Blaschka) — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 03:21:54 +0000

Amy wears many hats. She is a ghostwriter, content creator, author and in a way a great life coach. She also has some amazing personal beliefs on goal setting and education. We talked a lot about her favorite things. Communication, storytelling, writing, creativity, emotional intelligence, leadership, and human behavior fueled a lot of our discussions.

On this episode of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, we talked about podcasting, productivity, business tips, nutrition and mindset. Interestingly we had a conversation about what it means to be a badass. Badass, in a good way means being slow to anger, increasing confidence and pursuing your best, most authentic self.

In many ways, the conversation was rooted in common sense. If you don’t know what you want to do, try something. If you know what you want to do, decide on the next step and do it. Understand what your message is, who you serve, and how you can reach them. Focus on surrounding yourself with people who want to see you succeed and spend less time with the people that aren’t helpful.

Since her main professional success path took her into the field of freelance writing, ghostwriting and becoming an author, we were able to talk about how to succeed as a writer. How do you get started without needing permission? How do you make progress to the point where you can get paid to publish your writing?

One of the best discussions in the episode was about whether or not people should monetize their audience, or simply create the content for free. Ultimately, Amy provided great reasons as to how we can really do both. And it starts with knowing the difference between serving and selling. We can create a ton of free content that truly delivers value. Not because it’s part of a funnel, or marketing plan, but because it actually helps. And then, we can also share the fact that we have a product, or service that can really help people out there.

When asked for her number one piece of advice for people, she provides a very helpful answer. She wanted to tell people to stop hiding. Step out into who you're meant to be, stop being passive in your own life. You know? Stop hiding, get out there and just start, right? Just try! The real-world learning that comes from actual experience is as important as anything we could ever learn in a textbook.

12 Steps To Own Your Dream Career
What you end up doing as a job, or a career may not even exist, or at least it will evolve. You could create something brand new. When it comes to a “career”, you may also pivot a bunch of times. Either way, it all starts with some self-awareness.

The first question is what do you want? If you don’t know, don’t be afraid to try things out quickly. It’s better to learn sooner than later, and not spend decades in a career that you don’t like.
Create a roadmap that could get you there, realizing it will change.
Identify your purpose for doing this, “your why”, so you can stay motivated in tough times.
Test it out, have conversations, ask for feedback, create surveys and discussions on forums, or groups. See if there is any interest for what you might create. There's no downside other than learning that maybe it's not the right time or it's not the right type of career for you.
Don’t stay a secret. Set up your site, and profiles with clarity. When you share on a social platform, people will click back. They want to know who’s putting out this content. If they search and your work is confusing you will lose them.
Start building your portfolio before getting permission to publish. No one can stop you from creating content. If you haven’t published anything, people won’t be able to reference your work. So start creating in that medium before people are willing to pay you for it.
Own it. You can say you are a musician, writer, or painter, whatever. Once you are doing it, speak it in the present tense. Don’t say I want to be, say I am.
Take an audit of your network. Relationships are the most important thing. Investing in relationships will lead to opportunities and efficiency in your life. All it means is being trustworthy, honoring your word, and putting service first.
Take an audit of your time. It’s the most important thing to protect. How are you using your time effectively and continually improving habits to support your goal? It won’t be perfect, but over time you will get more and more efficient.
Know your target audience. Who are you speaking to? What do they need? What do you want to say to them? Where are they? Create for them, where they are and before long you’ll have a community building.
When it comes to making money, focus on a few things you do well. What are your core offerings and how can you make it crystal clear to others? You want the reputation of your products, and services to be clear so people know why to hire you.
Feel free to ask for referrals, reviews and testimonials. Careers and businesses are built through trust and reputation.

Memorable Quotes
“Some people will say they’re successful because they made a lot of money. That's great, but it’s not in the long run going to fulfill you.”

“A leader isn't dictated by title. Everyone is a leader. Everyone can be a leader. Regardless of age, experience, or job title. It's really how you move through the world. If you step up, speak out and speak your truth, everyone has the capacity for leadership.”

“You not using your talents at their highest and best use is depriving the world of something. You not doing that can actually be selfish because the world needs what you've got. You're the sum of your experiences, and everything can contribute to this world in a unique way.

Guest Bio

Our guest today has a ton of experience in building business, content creation and writing. She’s published thousands of articles on LinkedIn, Thrive Global, Medium, and Forbes. If we had to identify two of her top strengths, one would be storytelling, and the other career decision making.

When it comes to storytelling, she is an expert at helping leaders craft their stories, so they can communicate better. Working with clients, she helps them expand their reach and impact. She is also excellent at creating content and writing for other people. Through the art of ghostwriting, she helps those that struggle with marketing to show up how it will serve them best.

She is also incredible when it comes to career decision-making. Her many articles include content such as “Stop Doing The One Thing That’s Sabotaging Your Career Growth” and “You’re Not Lazy, You’re Scared. How To Stop Procrastinating.”

She has her own successful newsletter called “Illuminate Me” where she shares more intimate, personal insights on her favorite topics—communication, storytelling, writing, creativity, emotional intelligence, soft skills, leadership, and human behavior.

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Jordan Paris on How To Develop A Growth Mindset and Start A Podcast

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Jordan Paris) — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 18:46:10 +0000

Our guest today has a ton of experience in building business, especially when it comes to podcasting. He grew his first podcast, Growth Mindset University to being ranked in the top fifteen of education, self improvement, and training. His show focused on entrepreneurship, self development, writing and educational leadership.

His TEDX Talk was all about education too. It focused on the question, have you ever regretted taking on college tuition debt? What if you believed that an internship provides more life experience than a classroom? Jordan shared how you can make the most out of your college experience. He talks about succeeding financially, socially, and authentically in a world that is different for each of us. Jordan is really big on finding real world experiences aligned with your goals and interests to prepare for a career.

We all evolve in our thinking and Jordan is one of the best at being a personally critical thinker. Upon reflecting, he realized that we live in a world where things are getting tense, real issues are bubbling to the surface, and wanted to do his part to create conversations that can have greater impact.

The podcast episodes evolved into his second podcast, The Jordan Paris Show, where he started discussing current affairs, politics and debunking myths. He got into this style of show because being a best-selling author, getting a TedX Talk, and achieving some social media status felt like fake social proof.

Jordan, like many of our guests, does a lot of awesome work. He is also the founder and creative director of Trend Up Media, a one-stop podcast agency that produces shows to help businesses grow in both profit and influence.

Jordan is a heart-felt leader who takes a no BS approach in seeing out his mission to be as real as possible. His main platform on social media is LinkedIn where he has built a community of people who are focused on achieving whatever success means to them.

On this episode of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, we talked about podcasting, productivity, business tips, nutrition and mindset. Like any strong entrepreneur with a focus on the meaning of life, Jordan helps people learn to escape the rat race by acquiring cash flowing assets and building passive income. With this the real goal can be how to live life to the fullest and do more of the things you love.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this discussion is Jordan’s willingness to say “I don’t know” in the face of challenging questions. It is also pretty neat how Jordan explains that we all must continue to fight our cognitive bias. That it is ok if we no longer believe what we used to believe.

12 Tips To Help You Start A Podcast:
1. Don’t Be Afraid To Ship It. The most important thing in the beginning is building all of the skills and experience. There is only one way to improve and that is by having episodes that are not good at the beginning.

2. Don’t Give Up. Nobody will listen at first. Unless you are already a big brand you will have to grow one listener at a time. This can be a positive because you will have time to figure out your workflow and improve before more people start listening.

3. Don’t Delete Old Episodes. No matter how cringe you feel your old episodes are, they are important to show growth to your community. No matter how embarrassing it is, keep your old episodes up so you can be an inspiration to others wanting to get started, not to mention show the full story.

4. Don’t Be The Best Kept Secret Online. Get out there, shill and share your show. Also realize, you are never as good as you might think you are. Continue to improve and continue to share the show so that more and more people can know about it. You could build amazing content and literally no one will find it. So keep spreading the word.

5. Create Micro Content From The Main Podcast Pillar. Record great episodes, but don’t stop there. Find a way to share the highlights and quotables on social media platforms you think connect most with your audience. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try different styles of videos, thumbnails, vertical, horizontal, durations and whatever else comes to mind.

6. Focus On One Platform. Determine your best percentage based breakdown of time spent building community on a social media platform. Feel free to share quickly across all platforms, especially if people want to find you. But, be sure to focus at least 75% of your time on one single platform, because without focus no one will find the show.

7. Grow Your Marketing One Post At A Time. Sharing micro content will be slow in the beginning. You will get no likes on a post. Then perhaps one like and a comment. But the next time you may get two, and with another piece a few more. Over time, more guests and more content will lead to a compound effect. It will snowball until it can’t be slowed down. With patience you will find more and more opportunities to engage with the audience in DM’s, or replies and likely get too busy all of a sudden.

8. Guests Will Compound Too. In the beginning you have to get what you can get when it comes to asking people to be on your show. For a brand new podcast, it’s likely to need to interview your immediate connections, possibly friends and family. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to the people you would love to interview. The worst that happens is they say “not right now”. That’s fine, there are many amazing people out there to collaborate with. Over time, guest opportunities will have a compound effect too. One guest will lead to another, a topic will lead to leverage and before long it will be hard to keep up with the opportunities.

9. Never Worry About Clout. What you’ll realize is that just because someone has a lot of social media followers does not mean they’ll be a valuable guest for you, or your audience. Do your homework and be sure you are interviewing people that serve your greater purpose and mission. Whether they have a large following, or small following, focus on the question, will this serve my listeners?

10. Be Open Minded And Listen. We should always be open to counter arguments and guard against our biases. Lifelong learning is appreciating that we can learn something from everyone. We can also change our views on things in life as we get more information. So, don’t stress too much about who you have on the show, or what their answers are. It is not about crafting and tailoring someone’s responses. Rather, it is about being an effective listener.

11. Love Your Haters. It’s simply mathematical that haters will grow as the community grows overall. If you are doing something worthwhile, it will have a polarizing effect. And so people that dislike the show will grow too. But, there is nothing more badass and cool than remaining calm when receiving hate. Be sure to take constructive criticism and appreciate everyone's feedback. It doesn’t mean you need to take it personally, or even accept it as something to implement. Simply be willing to listen and spend most of your energy leaning into the community that is kind and supportive toward your work.

Memorable Quotes
“Target audience is overrated. I'm so sick of marketing classes saying target market, target market, identify your target market and they don't teach you anything about how to get them to actually give a damn and buy what you're selling.”

“To find your passion, pay attention to those things that you gravitate towards. Think back to your childhood and ask, what did you gravitate towards? What really made you happy and excited? Try to incorporate that into your career and test it, Try to figure out your calling. Think about what makes you feel alive.”

“I struggle with how honest I should be when answering questions I don’t have a response to. I have the courage to say, 'I don't know’ to people, but it can come across as, ‘I don’t want to be here’ or ‘I don’t care’. I just don't want to BS something and fluff some answer that doesn't serve people. That's actually a detriment to people. If I don't know, I will say I don't know, but people take that the wrong way. “

Guest Bio

Jordan Paris is a podcast host, entrepreneur, and author featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and other publications. But most importantly he is a lifelong learner, repping that Just Keep Learning attitude.

Jordan has been interviewing people on podcasts since his sophomore year of college. While the show is amazing and really did serve a lot of people, it is less aligned with his current ambitions, and so it is on a pause from recording for now.

Jordan really matured in his personal brand and shares some amazing things about “fake social proof”: blue checkmarks, becoming a “best-selling” author by understanding algorithms, getting a TEDx talk because of the clout factor, getting featured in Forbes and Entrepreneur.com, lots of likes on social media and on and on.

He got over the social reward chasing and shifted his views. In a world where things are getting tense, real issues are bubbling to the surface, Jordan realized he wanted the show to focus less on social media growth, or popularity and more on political issues.

So, Growth Mindset University evolved into The Jordan Paris Show. This lasted for a while, but really it led to him deciding to focus solely on his companies and entrepreneurship for now. His podcast production company, started in 2019 is called Trend Up Media. And he also has a business in real estate investing called Estateomatic. No doubt there will be more companies to be built in the future as well.

Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Keep in mind that we link these companies and their products because of their quality.

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Karla Gregg On How To Build A Personal Brand And Youtube Channel

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Karla Gregg) — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 23:22:11 +0000

Our guest today has a ton of experience in social media and content creation, especially video. She has worked as an assistant to big time Youtubers, created content for American Ninja Warrior and even turned down work with the Ellen show.

Karla Gregg named her Youtube Channel “What Would Karla Say” because she has a huge passion for lifelong learning, personal development and goal setting. Even though Youtube has not been her full time focus, she definitely is an expert in how to grow a YouTube channel. She learned a lot of this through her own trial and error. But, she also worked as an assistant to Joey Graceffa, learning a ton about building a YouTube brand behind the scenes.

Karla is a heart-felt, and vulnerable personal brand coach. Her work and experience focuses on storytelling, video content strategy and defining your brand. If you’re ready to embrace your spark and turn your personal story into a marketable brand, then she is one of the best to guide you.

She is the founder of a courage based weekly newsletter at karlagregg.com, the courageously you collective, and creator of the YouTube channel What Would Karla Say? Much of her focus in the last couple years has been on speaking, coaching and creating resources for people in the area of entrepreneurship.

While she started her career with aspirations to work as a social media manager for big brands, it was the classic story of being laid off from work that led her to being a business owner. She gives credit to people like Tim Ferris, Marie Forleo and Jen Sincero when it comes to building her foundation as a personal brand expert.

We talk a lot in this episode about following your own path. It feels scary to be an entrepreneur, but that fear is the exact evidence that you are on the right track. The question is how do you not give up when you are faced with challenges?

Throughout the episode Karla opens up about struggling with her own vision and patience. She mentions how many times she probably would have succeeded in a passion area if she went with her gut and cared less about what people think. She talks about how simple it would be to take the easier, conventional path, but how that doesn’t make her come to life.

Karla has always used the catchphrase “create your own path” and you’ll understand why after listening to this episode. She also gives so many great tips on being a badass business owner and starting a YouTube channel for the first time.

12 Tips To Help You Get Started On YouTube

1. Create content you're excited to edit. You may want to edit a particular theme, teach a topic, or tell certain stories. Don’t edit a video just because you think it might get views, you’ll give up, or you’ll burn out quickly.

2. Find your unique brand story. What are your values, personality traits, stories and passions? Put those together and your audience will feel connected to you.

3. Every video should provide value. It should entertain, empower or educate. Even if you're not monetizing yet, you're still building a community who supports you.

4. Have a consistent structure and flow. I tend to give like 15 seconds of what the video will be about. I'll share some form of hook, or activation. And then I’ll do a funny, or creative montage with music, or B-roll and music. And then I'll hop into the main points and story, followed by some element of conclusion, or recap.

5. Write a script. Not an elaborate novel for a Morgan Freeman like voiceover. Have three main points and stick to them so you’re not rambling on.

6. Find the balance of engagement and education. It's all about personality, so don't just sit there and waste people’s time for fifteen minutes blabbering about nothing. There is a mid-point between being a teacher and lacking energy, find that.

7. Have a strategy mindset. If you are strategic you will succeed. If you study up on trends, keywords, captions, descriptions, and comment best practices, PLUS add personality, you’ll win. Don’t forget to treat thumbnails, and titles like a researcher. What works and what doesn’t?

8. Define your niche. As much as it is fun to inject overall personal interests, there should be a specific reason that someone would search your channel. What is your overarching purpose, or topic?

9. Define your sub-niche. A specific video should be able to be searched by a keyword that people are actually looking for in search engines. Once you find related keywords you will also have more ideas for things to include on your channel. A quick personal example:
I made a video of me having pizza with my friends. I called the video "having pizza with friends". Nobody is searching for that. But if I say “best pizza place in Philadelphia”, people come across my video and all of a sudden it is a fun video of me trying the best pizza places with friends, they could be like, I like this girl and channel and maybe subscribe when they originally came for a piece of content that they searched for.

10. Quantity over quality. With more videos, quality will naturally increase. You'll learn how to be more efficient, creative and provide more value. Over time you will know when it makes sense to start creating longer form, slower produced videos, but starting out get focused simply on creating more.

11. Monetize early. It’s important to monetize for the right reasons as long as it’s aligned with your values. There should be a balance, but it can’t only be about the art and storytelling. You need money to be able to reinvest in the channel. Don’t jump at everything, but always be on the lookout for strategic partnerships and revenue streams.

12. Be patient and focus on the journey. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect and plan everything just right. We are all just trying to do the best that we can with the resources we have. Give it your all, but don't be too hard on yourself. And make sure you do it because you love it first, any results are a bonus.

Memorable Quotes
“I used to compare myself a lot to people doing similar stuff to me. But a coach told me, instead of looking at them as competition, look at them as inspiration and collaboration.”

“One of the biggest tricks is realizing we are not going to be perfect, we won’t have everything. There will be ups and downs, but you just need to put yourself out there and do it.”

“Figure out who your audience is. Knowing these 4 answers will help. Who vibes with your personality, passion, skills and story? These 4 questions make up your brand story and are the key to success.”

“I passed up a lot because I worried what people thought. But, one of the cool things about being an adult is we start worrying less. If you can have a carefree mindset younger, maybe even in high school, you can start to see yourself as a badass who doesn't worry what people say, which really helps you be more creative.”

Guest Bio

Karla Gregg is a business coach, speaker and content creator who focuses on helping people face fear and create their own path in life. As a leader in entrepreneurship, she is a tremendous role model for anyone looking to build their own brand. Perhaps her greatest strength is a tremendous understanding of the power of storytelling.

She has worked on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, American Ninja Warrior and spoken at conferences around the world on the topics of brand identity and content creation.

Her website is KarlaGregg.com, YouTube channel is What Would Karla Say and she has created a podcast called Live Well Be Bold, a show called Never Have I Ever and a newsletter to help people be more bold and courageous with life and business decisions.

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Noah Merriby On Philosophy, Personal Development And Learning Entrepreneurship

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (JustTries, Justin Nolan, Noah Merriby) — Fri, 8 Oct 2021 17:22:40 +0000

Noah has been called the “next Tony Robbins”. We talk about moving to Canada, learning English, entrepreneurship and goal setting. Specifically, we look at building businesses, marketing and how to improve online learning. In this episode of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, we also talked about how to create your own digital books, and the healthy way to grow an audience on social media.

He gets that Tony Robbin's nickname because he has a huge passion for lifelong learning, philosophy and personal development. While he appreciates the compliment, he is definitely carving out his own path. He has overcome a lot and shown a ton of resilience to start building his social media, business and life empire.

Noah Merriby is the type of person that makes you wonder “how do you get so much done?” But, he learned through trial and error, how to work smart, and not just hard.

Noah is the co-founder of Lurnus, an educational curation media brand. He also is a leader in social media growth, digital marketing and a big part of collaborations and content with us at Just Keep Learning.

While he started a university degree focusing on business and marketing, Noah quickly realized that focusing full time on building businesses he owns was the best decision. He knew that he could always go back and complete a degree if he needed to.

This is why we talk a lot in this episode about self-learning. The idea that we need a specific way to learn something is pretty traditional. It’s not to say school is unnecessary. But, it is to say we can learn in many other ways and each person learns differently.

Noah builds a lot of personal brand content on mindset, speaking and career goal setting. His most recent startup is Lurnus, which curates educational content for people to learn about many different topics.

Throughout the episode Noah opens up about being an immigrant to Canada and having to figure it all out at a young age. Another big part of his life was having to navigate bullying in school. It seems this challenge and the need for resilience paved the way for a solid foundation for being a business leader. We talked about why and how he got into entrepreneurship too. All about the things he learned along the way and how anyone can do it with the right attitude.

The books Noah has published so far are called, the habits of success, you are what you know, and genius at work. So, no doubt he is focused on all the right things when it comes to helping his audience be more productive and live with more joy.

We also talked about how to craft your life vision and take the first steps to grow as an online educator.

How To Craft Your Vision As An Online Business Leader:
One of the biggest challenges we have as creative entrepreneurs is crafting a fine tuned vision and knowing the steps to take. Here are some tips to help:

Take a piece of paper and pen
Go to a quiet place
Ask yourself, if a genie appears, what would you ask for in life?
Write down everything you think of with zero limitations.
Once you have a bunch of things pick one or two to focus on
Find mentors, courses and content to follow that are specific to that goal
Pick a platform to focus 80% of your growth and community building on
Craft something free that you give to your audience for joining your community, such as an e-book, guide, course, or exclusive opportunity
Avoid all the things that are distracting, shiny ideas and stay focused by building systems and habits that you put in daily

Memorable Quotes
“That book showed me that I can dream and that I can use my imagination to start creating a future of whatever I want to do. Really, just imagine, and then I can start working towards it. So I started imagining and I started thinking, where do I want to go? What do I want to achieve? And things started to build up for me.”

“At first, it was messy. At first, it was messy. I would just write, I would talk to somebody and figure out a problem, and then I'd write about it and then afterward, I'll try to organize everything together. Now I'm writing a new book called State of Creation, and this is a lot more organized.”

“I spent four months working on this business and 20 dollars in marketing, then it didn't work. I was like, oh, nobody likes it. I guess I'll drop it. Four years later, if I start working on other products, I launch my first ad and it doesn't perform well, I do something different. I refined the ads, test and it didn't work. And then again and again, and I keep refining it to a point where now I have ads running. I have ads running all the time and I get like a $0.01 per click. Which is insane. But I spent a lot of money to get to that point.”

Guest Bio

Noah Merriby is an Author, Entrepreneur, and Investor. He is best known for his work in the Personal Development and Transformation field. He has taught more than 100,000 students from 170 different countries, speaking 55 different languages.

He conducts training programs for employees and executives in some of the leading international organizations. From Mercedes-Benz and Adidas, all the way to SurveyMonkey, Pinterest, Eventbrite, Lyft, and more, Noah’s training programs have had a huge impact on both individuals and organizations.

As a communication expert, Noah is an Internationally Recognized Award Winning Speaker. He got recognized for his expertise as a communicator, an orator, a public speaker, and a leader through Toastmasters.

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We appreciate you being here! Be sure to leave the podcast, “LEARNED” ratings and reviews because it will help people who need it be better able to find it. Also, if you want a shoutout, simply share an image of the episode, you listening, or your takeaways and share it @JustTries anywhere on social!

Reach out anytime! Text your questions to JustTries at +1 (313) 710-5499

Daniel Peretz How To Be A Serial Entrepreneur and Lifelong Learner

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Daniel Peretz, Justtries, Justin Nolan) — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 16:07:12 +0000

Our guest today stresses that life is simply better when we are working in areas connected to our passion. He destroys the idea that sales, or marketing are bad and helps us realize why it’s such an important part of seeing out our visions to help people.

Daniel Peretz, truly understands what it means to run multiple businesses. The idea of being an entrepreneur in a small way scares a lot of people off, but Daniel is an entrepreneur with many businesses.

Daniel opens up about how he got into entrepreneurship, the things he learned along the way and how anyone can do it with the right mindset. While it may not be for everyone, entrepreneurship could be for anyone. You just have to realize that you will fail and learn. You have to realize that there is no such thing as balance, rather compartmentalization that will really help you thrive.

He has an incredible resume when it comes to helping other businesses, or individuals in the creator economy achieve success. One of the most interesting things about Daniel is his ability to be open to the next idea as well. A true entrepreneur and lifelong learner.

With this attitude, you can be sure that Daniel’s brand will continue to grow and being a part of the journey is pretty awesome. Like all of our guests, he is an inspiring example of putting family first, continuing to pursue your passions, and making a lot of money in the process, but most importantly, being a good person along the way.

In episode 9 of The LEARNED Podcast, we talked about learning styles, online education, being in the military, balancing family life, and building businesses. Hope you enjoy it!

How To Be An Entrepreneur And Build Passive Income:

When you start a business, the key is to focus on the lifestyle you want and continually build toward that vision. Here are some steps to get started:

Goal one is to appreciate that you have to sacrifice a lot in the beginning.
The best way to start is to ask what lifestyle do you want in the end?
Then reverse engineer that process into small goals. What small goals would lead to eventually and actually generating passive income for you?
Avoid all the things that are distracting, shiny ideas and stay focused by building habits and systems that keep you healthy and on task.
Remember it takes time, but keep learning and keep going
Don’t worry about what you think will work. Focus on the people you serve, they will show you what will be successful. They are the key to success.
Make sure you stay positive in terms of cashflow, but decide with any given project whether the goal is to build revenue, or brand, or both.
There is no juggling. You have to compartmentalize so you can focus on fitness when you’re working out, focus on family when it’s family time and business when it’s business time.
Again, really focus on who your audience is and what solution they would like you to provide them. Do this with one product, or service at a time and then add more.
Sell first in a way that allows you to really test if something will be successful so you don’t waste time, or energy as you fail and learn quickly
When it’s time to grow your business, there are multiple ways, but I am a big fan of hiring micro influencers. To be honest many marketing strategies can work, you just need to test them out.

Memorable Quotes
“Say you’re selling a tie-dye shirt. Depending on your budget, I would look at nano, or micro-influencers, you know, anywhere between 5000 to 100,000 followers. In my opinion, it's cost-effective, and if you find the right one who has the right audience, then right away you're focused on your niche.”

“Look, you're not going to start this three, four months from now and start putting up one hundred videos in one day. You might as well start it now. Give yourself a platform and build over time.”

“There is no juggling. You have to compartmentalize. One for your sanity. And two, it's important that you give attention to your kids. Just like if I asked, would it be important for you to give attention to your business, you would say, hell, yeah, of course, it's important to me. Well, the same thing goes for kids. Same thing goes for your family. Give attention to them and put it in your calendar.”

Guest Bio

Daniel Peretz is the CEO at Click Connect Media, supporting businesses in growing media, brand, marketing and advertising. He has delivered millions of leads to local businesses through a business called Grow My GMB and built Tokfluence an influencer search database.

He is a speaker, business strategist, sales and marketing expert. As a family man, his goal is to build awesome businesses if his foundation of family, friends, and health is there first.

There’s always a new partnership, or creation in the works because Daniel is a lifelong learner and uses collaboration over competition. He is also really good at building systems and strategies to stay organized and be able to do many things.

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Stephanie Powell On How To Build A Brand That Has Impact

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (JustTries, Stephanie Powell, Justin Nolan) — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 17:38:35 +0000

Our guest today stresses that now more than ever it is time for you to stop hiding and unleash your badass self. She stresses that just keep learning attitude in her own life. In this episode, we have some great conversations about priorities, authenticity and what really matters in life. She is an entrepreneur that wears her heart on her sleeve. Her priority is lending a hand to those in need. And she is an inspiring example of pursuing your full passions, while making some great money in the process.

Our guest in this episode, Stephanie Powell, truly understands what it means to pivot and reposition herself in life. She started out really not knowing what to do, got into education for thirteen years and still wasn’t sure. After trying a couple things based on her interests and following her omens she took a leap of faith to become a leader in business.

She has an incredible resume when it comes to helping people get clarity over what they want to do in life. And she has a specific skillset for helping people build personal, or company brands that have impact. She is a designer and coach who uses an all encompassing approach to outline and implement brand strategy for her clients. From the logo to the colours and messaging she knows how to help people show up for their audience in a bold, yet authentic way.

She is also a lifelong learner with big goals to become a speaker, continue to build her company and give back to those in need. Like all of our guests, she is an inspiring example of pursuing your passions, doing what you love first, while worrying about money second, and most importantly, being a good person along the way.

In episode 8 of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, we talked about growing up with struggles, resilience and building a badass business. Hope you enjoy it!

How To Figure Out What To Charge In Your Business
When you start a business, the key is to focus on breaking even as you build your brand. Here are some steps to figure out what that looks like:

With service based businesses in particular you have some flexibility when it comes to deciding on and evolving prices.
Sit down and write down all of your overall expenses (personal cash flow needs + business expenses)
Once you have this total you know your break even point and the minimum monthly money you must make in the business.
Multiply this number by 12 to get your annual revenue minimum
Working backwards, decide on your minimum amount per service hour to account for break even plus any profit and reinvestment amount you would like (how many hours do you need to work per week to achieve this annual goal?)
Take that hourly, or service based rate to the market and test it.
Get feedback and adjust accordingly.
This method seems simple, it’s just math, but take the time to apply it to the products and services you roll out to make sure it is sustainable.

How To Build A Personal Brand As A Speaker And Thought Leader
Ultimately it takes time, patience, networking and consistent brand development, but these steps will help you book more speaking gigs if that is your goal:

Recognize what stories you could tell. And realize that everyone has a valuable story. Our stories are not more, or less valuable than each other, they’re just different.
Appreciate that you likely will need some revenue, or savings to pursue this passion in the early stages as the brand grows.
Start putting your stories out there. Connect with audiences on social media, enter speaking contests, speak as much as possible for free, and be a guest on podcasts, or lives where you can share the story.
The key is to practice your storytelling, refine the stories and improve your comfort speaking. Get feedback and continue to adjust the way you tell stories, as it is a lifelong development process.
Once you feel ready to charge, fix up your website to include a speaker’s reel, some testimonials and a contact me page. Share this information with as many people as possible.
Continue to gain experience speaking, while taking the content from those speaking engagements and sharing it on social media. Be patient and repeat this process with links back to your website and the brand will scale.

Memorable Quotes
“I do believe everybody needs a website, because even if you don't ever sell anything, just think about how we operate. What's one of the first things we do? If we want to think about doing business with someone, we Google them and websites are the most important piece of Google content”

“To find your passion, you have to try things. If you’re stuck, find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and can focus. Grab a good old fashioned pen or pencil and a piece of paper, or journal and start literally brain dumping. Don’t quantify any of your thoughts. Write them all down. Anything that makes you happy or brings you joy, write it down. Then ask yourself and your peers what your strengths are. You know have all of your strengths and interests recorded. Now brainstorm different combinations of passions to pursue by combining items from each list until you find one you want to try and simply give it a shot.”

“You Are A Badass At Money is a great place to start uncovering what stories you're telling yourself about money. We need to improve our relationships with building wealth. Instead of thinking about it as an amount, it's an exchange of value. I'm giving you something of value and you're giving me something of value.”

Guest Bio

Stephanie Powell is a speaker, business strategist, brand designer and authenticity expert. She is also a lion chaser, a creative, a designer, a total nerd, an educator, a dancer, an Aggie (whoop), a photographer, an intense logophile, a walking juxtaposition, a fierce animal advocate, and a forever champion of the oxford comma. Oh, and Jesus is her homeboy.

Her goal is to live life as authentically as humanly possible and surround myself with those souls who seek to do the same. And also, to enjoy as many side-splitting, crying, not-making-sound-anymore laughs as I can. Those are the best.

In 2018, she took the biggest leap of faith in her life thus far: resigning from 13 years in public education to start her own business in creative and graphic design and hasn’t looked back!

FOLLOW STEPHANIE

Website -Stephanie Powell Site
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Irina Buse On How To Follow Your Dreams While Building Business The Right Way

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justtries, Irina Buse, Justin Nolan) — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 15:19:06 +0000

This episode will help anyone trying to find their way in life. Especially if you want to start a business online. Irina coaches people to get clarity over their business goals and get started. She prides herself on helping people find full alignment and the pragmatic steps to getting those goals.

Irina has a unique backstory that involves moving to a new country. She had to overcome a lot to learn the culture, build social networks and learn the language. Yet, in spite of the challenges, she was able to get an MBA and build a successful business.

If anyone truly believes the idea that we are all unique and have gifts that we should share it’s Irina Buse.

Our episode 7 guest, Irina Buse truly understands what it means to overcome adversity en route to achieving your goals. She is a great example for people who want to pursue their own passions but don’t know where to start.

She has an incredible resume when it comes to helping people get clarity over what they want to do in life. She has specific skills in supporting people who want to be their own boss. One of her greatest strengths is making business simple and practical for people.

While she has a lot of corporate experience and an MBA, she prefers her work as an entrepreneur. Irina is a speaker, coach and consultant that supports people in finally taking that leap to pursue their dream work.

She has quite the backstory of living in Romania during difficult political times, emigrating to Canada and having to start over, but really making a pretty special comeback.

You don’t have to look any further than the testimonials on her website to know how many people she has helped. Like all of our guests, she is an inspiring example of pursuing your passions, doing what you love first, while worrying about money second, and most importantly, being a good person along the way.

In episode 7 of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, we talked about growing up with struggles, resilience and building a coaching business. Hope you enjoy!

Keys To Keep In Mind As A New Business Owner

When you start a business, the key is to start really simple. Here are some steps

Know your why and what that accomplishment would mean to you
Realize that “failing” is going to happen a lot and it’s actually learning
Get crystal clear on the community and audience you want to serve
Understand all of the possible ways you could serve them
Serve that community as much as possible for free
Pick one of those ways and sit with the idea a bit so you know it’s for sure
Share that with your community, and build testimonials, and referrals around that offer
Get feedback and revise that offer, price, marketing strategy etc.
Share the offer renewed, revised and continue to build the business by serving
Once that idea is established and automated you can move on to the next one

Memorable Quotes

“When a baby learns to walk, you don’t get mad at failure. You celebrate the first step. But this is not how we function in regular life because we think that only success should be celebrated. It’s way more important to fail and learn than to get it right, because it helps us learn.”

“Everybody should try to start a business. You don’t know if you are made to be an employee, or you are made to be an entrepreneur. Everyone should try. Because, it’s like your first relationship trying to find love. You need to give things a try to know.”

“The way we conventionally measure time has nothing to do with our growth path. I think there is value in everything, because there is a lot of value that people can offer at any age. There is a huge difference between someone who is 14 and someone in their eighties.”

“It will work when people need it. It doesn’t even matter what it is, but if people want it, it will work. It’s that simple.”

“If you serve first and do it right, you won’t have to worry about money, you will have lots of money.”

Guest Bio

Irina is a mindset coach specializing in supporting people to become their own boss by the power of their mind and emotions. Initially trained for the business world, she completed her formal education in business management, got her MBA and worked in different corporations for 20 years.

Her passion is being close to people, feeling their story and helping them build the conditions for long lasting transformation.

She changed careers in her late 30’s becoming a certified health coach empowering women from all walks of life.

The programs she runs are around the concepts of spirituality, diet, mind management, habit change, communication and holistic, green living.

This is the foundation for realizing your dreams. Be and stay in shape, without stressful effort and make peace with the worries, fear and power you have to live healthy.

FOLLOW Irina Buse

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Ali Jones On How To Build Apps, Courses and Coaching

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan, JustTries, Ali Jones) — Sun, 2 May 2021 14:27:53 +0000

This episode will help anyone who struggles with their identity as a creative entrepreneur. We talked about school, growing up with a single mom, lifelong learning, starting your own business, building an app, marketing, and how to build a value ladder. If anyone speaks to the just keep learning mindset, it’s Ali Jones. She is an expert in all things brand building, parenting and productivity. She started out in nursing, followed by Hollywood, and then became a coach, entrepreneur, and fitness expert. With so much life experience that provided equal struggle to success, she has a lot to share about how to stay healthy while being a multi-passionate business owner.

Our guest in this episode, Ali Jones, lives by the belief that we only get one life, so we might as well give it a shot to do what we truly love. Ali is one of those multi-passionate leaders who has tried many things but never failed because she always learned.

When you get to know Ali you will get a sense that continually finding out what you really love is the definition of success. A career isn’t only about money, it can be about connecting with a new audience, helping others succeed and finding what really brings your passion to life.

In episode 6 of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, we discussed the path she took to get to where she is, which included pursuing her first dream to be an actress, working as a nurse, time spent working on Hollywood films, starting her own business and much more.

Ali talked about why she wasn’t overly keen on pursuing acting when she saw The Rock and other celebrities endure the popular life and how it helped steer her in the right direction. As she made this decision she cemented a belief that it’s more important to do things in line with our true values than chase things like prestige, or fame.

Once she decided to go into business as an entrepreneur for herself she knew that the number one thing she could focus on was networking. She was willing to give up some personal revenue, and a paycheque to be mentored by those who have built businesses already. And that led to her building the confidence to launch her own app-based business.

Like any intelligent person starting a business, Ali knew to focus on community, customer journey and solving a pain point. Ali built a web based app to create digital business cards as a means of making networking more efficient. Ali made it clear that accomplishing something like this is never an end game. As entrepreneurs we often pursue multiple ventures and ideas. Some will work, some won’t but we will always learn.

Since learning is such an important topic for this show, Ali shared her own struggles with school. As she struggled through math she didn’t realize she had dyscalculia and built coping strategies to make it through. She was one of those students who knew how to play the game to succeed within the institution, but mentioned that we should not let grades determine our worth. It’s a trap where we think grades actually matter in the real world when they in fact don’t at all.

We got into discussing topics of vulnerability, growth mindset and lifelong learning. We talked about her previous passions and the importance of high quality marketing, instead of gimmicks, or fads that come and go. Ali also told us which resources and people inspire and teach her about success in life and business.

Example Value Ladder
A value ladder is made up of the possible touch points a customer, or community member could have with your business. They range from free to expensive and can be only a couple of things, or many. Here is an example mentioned by Ali in our interview.

Free download (course, e-book, podcast) that brings real value on the topic that your possible customers, or audience will really appreciate
Free 30 minute call where you don't do any research ahead of time. Just focus on whatever the client could need most and discuss possible solutions to social media, brand building, goal setting and productivity. Give some possible action steps to go and apply.
60 minutes paid coaching where there was some research beforehand about areas of improvement, possible ideas and themes to discuss. A power hour where you can discuss the current pros and cons of the business, or life goals. As well as a prescription for next action steps. Could include a courteous follow up call for 15 minutes or so in the future.
Paid course or membership with ongoing learning and support for a set price, or monthly recurring revenue where over time you are able to contextually support a group with their goals. Ideally it creates a community to support each other and gives support over an extended period of time.
One on one coaching experience, where the topics from the course, or membership can be tackled in depth and very specific to the individual. Ideally regular follow up and a contract that extends over a few months will have the greatest impact.

Memorable Quotes
“Nobody can help you get to that next level in your business unless you're honest about where it is you need to get and what you need to get there. Nobody can help. They will help you, if you tell them how and if you're honest. But if you're pretending like you're already there and you've already quote-unquote made it, then obviously no one's going to lift a finger.”

“I would say that I wish I had quit trying to blame somebody else for it, regardless of if there is somebody to blame. At the end of the day, you're the only person that can really fix it.”

“I was with Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. I was assigned to give him his cues for the scene. And it was probably like a three hour process. It was a really long shoot that day. And he is the kindest person in the entire universe. And he was constantly stopping to go and manage "celebrity-ness" of signing autographs.”

“When it comes to collaboration with similar business owners, instead of them being competition, I really respect them and love what they're doing, and I wouldn't want to do exactly what it is that they're doing. So it's a great way for me to be able to bring that other missing piece that my course doesn't provide and gives them an opportunity to plug their business too.”

“Grades always try to determine your worth. But I think it's really your perseverance to get over whatever systemic system is set up, you can have the worst grades in school or not even finish, but if you can still find value in learning, as long as you can still do something that you feel proud of, that's going to give you all the confidence you need that grades can never do because grades aren't real life.”

Guest Bio
Ali Jones is a highly experienced customer service and marketing professional with a broad range of skills and expertise in multiple disciplines. When it comes to business she is excellent in sales, research, promotions, customer management, copywriting and speaking.

To say she has a lot of life and career experience would be a huge understatement. She has worked as a personal assistant for Hollywood filmmaking, built an app as a CEO of her own company, and worked in nursing. She uses the valuable and varied insights she’s gained from her background to help people understand and stay consistent with their personal brand. She also helps businesses grow their potential customer awareness, increase conversion rates and develop practical marketing solutions.

Ali's experience developing and launching new products gives customers confidence in her ability to quickly understand, assess, and recommend solutions to a variety of hurdles inherent in the brand development and customer retention process. She is also a very effective coach when it comes to life, productivity, social media and business goals.

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Hayden Cashion On How To Be Great At Social Media Marketing

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Hayden Cashion, JustTries, Justin Nolan) — Sat, 6 Mar 2021 01:25:31 +0000

This episode will help any creative entrepreneur thrive. We talked a lot about learning, starting your own business, owning your goals, marketing and how to succeed in the world of e-commerce, or hip hop. Hayden is an expert in all things social media, brand awareness, and digital marketing. He started his own digital agency, Cashion marketing before completing university. As a former athlete, sponsored skater, and hip hop artist, he has powerful tips to share on growth mindset.

We get into the conversation of motivation and making progress step by step. We also discuss how the education system may not teach us what we need for business. But, there are many great people to help you get started.

Pursuing Your Passions And Expertise

Did you know that paid social media advertising is one of the quickest and most effective ways to build your brand? It isn’t only about sales, it can be about connecting with a new audience and growing your community.

Our guest in this episode, Hayden Cashion, has an incredible tagline for helping attract clients. Hey says simply, “D.M. me to grow your business.”

In episode 5 of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, Hayden shares how it can be a realistic dream to pursue your passion, no matter what it is. We discussed the challenges of creating an online business, or brand, but provided a lot of solutions. For example, less so tips and tricks, and more on improving your attitude. If you want to succeed in a passion and you are willing to map toward long term ambition, then you will succeed.

Hayden explains how it can be challenging, yet so rewarding to pivot and pursue your passion. Then perhaps pivot again as you get closer and closer to your big dream. He shares the importance of having a long term mindset and how to efficiently leverage your social media as an investment. One of the great points Hayden made in this episode is that short term pain is well worth it for long term satisfaction if it prevents regret, which is like long term sadness.

Since learning is such an important topic for this show, we asked Hayden how he feels education can do a better job of serving those who gave up on school at a young age and he had some really good ideas. We talked about having more general knowledge in school, so that everyone learns the valuable basics and has a chance to explore their passions with freedom.

We got into discussing topics of lifelong learning, his previous passions and the value of hip hop on both his life and the culture of social media. He let us in on some stories about who inspires him and how his mind works when it comes to goal setting. We talked about vulnerability as one of the most important aspects of goal setting.

Not only is Hayden a worldwide leader in digital marketing, he also creates a lot of tremendous personal brand content that serves his audience. He is a public speaker, hosts clubhouse rooms and is a great role model for anyone in this digital age.

How To Start As A Hip Hop Artist

Start by studying the market to find people who have done similar things to what you want to do already.
Make a list of people who have been there before that become your role models
Next, find a style and playbook that some artists used that you feel you could relate with and emulate. Did they try to pop viral songs, or build a high volume of albums consistent with their own values? How did they brand their art?
Once you figure out the plan of attack, start putting in that work by building habits that map to that ambition.
Have the expectation that you need to do a lot of work without any results early on and then you will be able to stick with it if you love it.

How To Start A Youtube Show About Building A Vintage Clothing Store

First off find someone who has done it before and study what they did.
Don't portray yourself as an expert. Show the real you, say an 18 year old girl who's just coming out of addiction and learning how to build a vintage clothing store.It takes the pressure off, knowing what you're talking about or knowing what you're doing.
Document the journey. Don’t overthink the creating of content, you can just document the process of learning.
Remember to shift your perspective. You can be an amateur with patience, and now you're interesting to watch. People want to watch you build things over the long term and see the process, which makes it more special.

Memorable Quotes
“I wasn't planning on starting a business as early as I did. The reason I did that early was because I had demand for it. So I knew I was going to make it. And, no time like the present. Right? feel like when you're young is the time to take as much risk as possible because, if my business failed, I would just go get another job. I didn't have a house. I didn't have a wife, I didn't have kids. I didn't have all these things relying on me. So I was able to just go full risk. And for me, I didn't really care if it failed and people laughed at me either. I'm OK with judgment. So, I just went for it.”

“If you want to build a personal brand around one facet of who you are as a human being, it's important to create an alter ego, or a name for that. So that you can then go back and be who you are. A kind of a stupid example, but like Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana was just one aspect of who she was as a true person. Then when she switched to Miley Cyrus, she was kind of her whole package.”

“Focus on quantity, because quality is subjective, quantity isn't. So if you put out ten pieces a week, you know that's ten pieces a week. Whereas if you put out ten quality pieces, then you're just making a subjective decision. Right? The amount of times I've run campaigns for people and what they thought would work and what I thought would work didn't work. It was actually the other stuff that we tested that worked.”

“Short term pain is well worth it for long term satisfaction if it prevents regret, which I feel is like long term sadness.

Guest Bio

Hayden is a multi passionate person. At a young age he already has a wealth of experience in different industries from hip-hop, to digital marketing and many things in between. He has a lot of wisdom too, which serves him well with his own goals in life and business.

Hayden talks a lot about how he finds happiness in helping others achieve their goals. He does this through personal branding, content creation and digital marketing. Hayden is the owner of Cashion Marketing, a brand built on his personal values and that operates as a digital agency in Ottawa, Canada.

As a business, Cashion Marketing helps clients achieve their business goals. This can be done through helping with brand building, attracting leads and creating awareness organically. And he also leverages paid digital ads to deliver his clients the best possible business results, when it comes to growing the brand, or conversions.

There is no denying that both his personal brand and his business success will keep skyrocketing because it is built on his ability to put people first. If you are looking for someone to follow when it comes to business, marketing, and mindset, then look no further than Hayden and his work

FOLLOW HAYDEN CASHION

Instagram - @haydencashion

Twitter - @HaydenCashion

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We appreciate you being here!

Be sure to leave the podcast, “Just Keep Learning” ratings and reviews because it will help people who need it be better able to find it. Also, if you want a shoutout, simply share an image of the episode, you listening, or your takeaways and share it @JustTries anywhere on social.

Stephanie Liu On Live Streaming & Social Media

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Stephanie Liu, Justin Nol, Justt) — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 05:40:17 +0000

A world leader in digital marketing and live streaming, Stephanie is the host of Lights, Camera, Live and the co-founder of Leap Into Live Streaming Bootcamp. It can be difficult, but everyone can learn to turn their passions into a business. Once you get past the struggle phase to the strive phase it is so worth it! In this episode, Hey Stephanie Liu explains how it can be done. She has spoken at Social Media Marketing World, VidCon, Podcast Movement, and co-authored the Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. Now she is bringing knowledge and wisdom to the Just Keep Learning Podcast.

Did you know video can be one of the best ways to connect with your audience? Our guest in this episode, Hey Stephanie, has an incredible tagline for helping brands stand out. She asks, “are you tired of being the best kept secret online?”

Achieving Your Big Goals

In episode 4 of The Just Keep Learning Podcast, Stephanie shares how it can be a realistic dream to start your own profitable and creative business. But, we also get into the challenges of starting an online business and how live video can really help connect with your audience. In this episode we get into the value of starting a business in order to design life the way you want.

Stephanie explains how it can be challenging, yet so rewarding to figure out what kind of business you want to create and how to get started. She shares the importance of putting family first and how to safely leverage your skills as a freelancer to build a profitable business.

One of the great points Stephanie made in this episode was how the skill of communication between people is important for all aspects of life. Communication is key in both business and relationships. She speaks to the power of storytelling as the number one tip she would pass on to the next generation.

Since learning is such an important topic for this show, we asked Stephanie how she feels education can do a better job of serving multi-passionate, creative entrepreneurs from a younger age.

We got into discussing topics of lifelong learning, various learning styles and the importance of real-world experience. She let us in on her own experience showing her nephew what it can be like to work remotely and become a live streamer.

Stephanie is the co-author of an incredible book, The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. It gives readers a 360-degree perspective of social media marketing in business. And gives strategy for organic, paid, business to business and business to consumer marketing.

Not only is Stephanie a worldwide leader in live video, she also teaches online courses to serve her audience. While the instruction details vary, her favorite topics are neuro linguistic programming, growing on social media and how to start your own live show. So let’s look at each of those in a bit more detail.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a powerful tool that puts you in control of your life. It helps you fully understand how your thinking impacts your behavior and results in life.
Our mind is our greatest wealth-building asset. When we fully grasp how our thoughts have an effect on how we think and feel, we have a better understanding of how our mindset determines our outcomes.
It will help you overcome limiting beliefs and communicate more effectively
It will help you master the art of confidence to deliver spell-binding presentations and captivate any audience

Growing A Community On Social Media

Stephanie agrees that it is valuable to have your brand exist across all of the popular platforms. However, she is a proponent that when you are starting to build an audience, you need focus and consistency. She believes the best place for this is wherever your audience is. For her, and likely the majority, a great place to start is Facebook.

Stephanie recommends creating a genuinely helpful Facebook group that can grow over time. She explains how sharing the link to your Facebook group all over social media, email, videos and posts is a great way to quickly grow a collaborative community.

It’s not just about selling. While that can be valuable, understanding Facebook as a great way to support each other is the most important part. It can be a confusing place to start and Stephanie explains the difference between a Facebook Page, and a Facebook Group.

Finally, she described how interesting it is to grow your personal brand. Over time, using a nickname like “Hey Stephanie” she started receiving a lot of inbound requests for support and speaking engagements. She tells a funny story about the first time she ever experienced the idea of “blowing up” beyond your immediate friends and family.

Keys To Live Streaming

To be memorable, you need to have a strong brand and embody the same personality every time you go live. Think hard about your brand personality and how you want to express yourself.
Focus first on where your audience is most engaged. You have a group of ambassadors that need what you are teaching, so keep it simple and serve where they are.
Go live as regularly as possible, such as once a week. Remember, at first you need to reach as many people as you can.
Don’t be afraid to promote your show to friends, colleagues, family, on social media, to your email lists, text communities, and groups.
After you go live, you also need to measure the success of your awareness content. Get feedback from viewers about what they appreciate and desire.
As you stream, engage in conversations with your audience. Ask them questions and make them feel like they are a part of your show.
To promote sales, which should be done at most 10 percent of your time, be direct: “Buy now.” “Sign up today!” “Book now!”
When it comes to being shy on camera many people face barriers such as Imposter Syndrome, comparing themselves to others, trying to be perfect, being shy, or wanting a certain production level. All of these things are defeated by taking immediate, imperfect action, where the only goal is progress, not outcome related.
Plan your live streaming process by creating a tech checklist for starting the show, testing the audio, visual set up, using a rough outline, introducing yourself and/or a guest to the audience, maintaining momentum throughout the show, thanking your audience every now and again and wrapping with a summary and call to action.
Finally, don’t let the great content die on the live show, be sure to repurpose highlight moments to bring value to your audience on other platforms.
People love authenticity and a real personality where mistakes are something that you embrace, where the raw, free-flowing nature becomes the appeal.

Memorable Quotes
“I would recommend a split strategy. Try to get a job that will fuel your passion project, instead of being a starving artist. Don’t just scrape by. What if what if you could have just a bit of stability where you're working, maybe that nine to five and then towards the evening you're making steps to learning that software or making those connections and going to those networking events because you have the funds to do so.”

“When you put yourself out there, I think vulnerability is the admission ticket to creativity. And I think it's one of those things where you could put yourself out there and share your story, that people are going to love that in the sense that they could relate to you. They could probably find something like, oh, I've heard something similar, or I've gone through that before.”

“I think most people just need accountability. That's another thing is just accountability, because it's so easy to want to jump around, especially when you're reading like a “how to” manual, right? You just have to flip through, but then you need someone that's going to hold you accountable, like you should read this first before you start that for where you are at.”

“If I could give you one piece of advice, something that you could always work on that's going to impact you in all areas of your life, both personal and professional, it's honing in on your communication skills. It's not just about the words that you say. It's about how you're able to listen to someone else and you're able to see it from their viewpoint and you're able to resolve conflicts. I think communication is one of those things where most of the problems in the world exist because there's always a communication breakdown. And I think if we all worked on being better listeners, being better communicators, then we wouldn't have as many problems as we would today.”

Guest Bio

Stephanie Liu is a live video strategist for brands and entrepreneurs who want to go from unknown to unforgettable. She lives in San Diego and got her start in digital strategy fifteen years ago serving in the ad agency world. She has since built an impressive entrepreneurial career that includes freelance consulting, course creation and a couple of different social media based companies.

She is an advocate of the power of live video, teaching people to leverage lives to get more exposure for all sorts of brands. Stephanie also shows people how to improve their on camera presence. She coaches them by improving both the technical aspects of production and storytelling to become irresistible on camera. She has helped many personalities, from astronauts to master chefs ignite their ideas and become confident on camera.

As she has become a veteran in entrepreneurship, she is a leader in helping others start their own thing too. She would be a tremendous role model for anyone looking to become an entrepreneur.

As a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming trainer, Stephanie teaches brain hacks to help people overcome their fears of public speaking by rewiring their minds for success. With her proven system, clients discover how to create crave-worthy content, get audiences buzzing with excitement, and how to deliver a spell-binding presentation that hooks viewers in.

She is the co-founder of “Leap Into Live Streaming Bootcamp” and continues to produce an awesome show in “Lights, Camera, Live” which airs every second Thursday. You can find past episodes on the Website.

Stephanie has been named in the Top 50 Digital Marketing Thought Leaders by University of Missouri and her work has been recognized by Forbes, Online Marketing Media And Advertising, PR Daily, and Forrester. She has spoken at Social Media Marketing World, VidCon, Podcast Movement, and many more events to come. Stephanie is also the co-author of Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing, published by Entrepreneur Press.

FOLLOW HEY STEPHANIE

Instagram - @heystephanieliu

Twitter - HeyStephanie

LinkedIn - Stephanie Liu

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Jacob Kelly On Social Media & Podcasting

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Jacob Kelly, Justin Nolan, JustTries) — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 04:52:08 +0000

In this episode, Jacob Kelly, former social media marketing manager of Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, and founder of JAK Marketing brings a ton of value for anyone who wants to learn to turn their creative passions into a business. We talk all about how to stop waiting and start taking action. We also get into the way that the education system may not teach us what we need for business. He talks about how much of what you learn in online business and social media marketing will be learned only by doing. But, that school can in fact give us the foundation to get there.

Trying Not To Give Up

Did you know most people quit producing their podcast by episode seven? Jacob discusses the difficulties of persisting, but how to build systems and habits that will help you surpass this seven episode barrier.

Jacob has shown perseverance as he has gone from episode zero to well over a hundred with hardly missing a beat. We discussed the idea that as creative people we need to find ways to carve our own paths. This can be in our own work, or in our side hustles. Or both.

Jacob is the founder of JAKMarketing and hosts the hit podcast My Social Life, in partnership with Trufan. We went deep into the topics that are discussed on his podcast. Specifically how we are often curating our own social media content to build a reputation, but that there is always a real person behind the feed and stories.

We discussed in great detail how to start a podcast, from the technology requirements to editing, uploading and everything in between. Jacob answers questions like how did you get started? What is the free way to start a podcast? And how do we go about marketing each episode to get the most engagement.

Finally, we discussed that having purpose and meaning in our work is so important. Jacob shared his own current learning goals and some wisdom for young entrepreneurs. This is one of those episodes that could have went on for days. You are sure to learn a lot from giving this one a listen.

Keys To Starting A Podcast

I have lists all over the place. I have a list on Twitter of people to D.M. to come on a podcast. I have a folder on my Instagram of photos I've saved of people to reach out to. I also have a note on my phone that I write in when people come to me, or I see their stuff. So I have lists all over the place. I'll find those and I'll start messaging people.
It is different being a guest, but I actually love being the interviewee because in every single podcast I get something different out of being the guest. Right? I think part of my love of being a guest is because if I ever have a job interview or something, I would do far better than I would before.
I found that I learned by doing, I learned so much more by doing and I figured out my podcast interview cadence. I figured out how to edit better. I figured out how to read people better. There's just things that you're only going to be able to learn by actually doing it. So what I always tell people is to just start!
I think it was the commitment to having my first guest that got me from planning to taking action on the podcast. It held me accountable to getting it together and figuring out how to edit and all that stuff.
Anchor is completely free, but I was being fancy and I got Simplecast. Fifteen bucks a month, I believe is what the charge is and again, it's very similar to anchor, a little bit different. It comes with its own website for your podcast and you can brand it yourself.
It's great for preserving your audio. If anything weird happens and it’s the best sounding audio quality of anything that I've ever used to record audio remotely. With Zoom, it would transmit from my computer to your computer and record on your computer. When it's recording straight into your computer, it keeps it in a higher audio quality.
A negative is the amount of time commitment that podcasting takes. But to not scare anybody listening to this, it doesn't have to be that way. I don't have to do any of that. I choose to. If you want to just sit down, you can literally stop recording, schedule and be done with it and spend two minutes editing the podcast. With my personality type, I have to do it that way. But you don't have to if you're starting.

High School Creativity And Business
Jacob talks about his creativity growing up and how it actually started with an interest in the film industry. He started out wanting to be a filmmaker in a role of director and writer. But, he found very little outlet for that passion. And social media was yet to be an interconnected space where he could do as much self learning as someone could now.

We talked about the fact that now, even though it’s not too long later, it’s much clearer that you can find very high quality learning opportunities on google, or social media platforms.

But, turning to where there were possibilities in highschool, he got interested in business and enrolled in a specific highschool program where he got to make his first pitch for investment dollars. Funny enough, that became a digital media agency to bring local businesses a greater return on marketing investments.

He explains how education, both in highschool and college didn’t lead to specifics for starting his businesses. But that it did establish a solid foundation for him to build off of. While there is a lot of hate for formal education, it can really create a base for us to then go pursue strengths and interests on.

Memorable Quotes
“It was pretty quickly on, that I realized the relationships I'm going to form through the podcast are far more valuable or equally as valuable as the downloads. My podcast has connected me with people literally all over the world, Australia, England, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Florida, all over the world.”

“I didn't start recording because I didn't think I was ready. I had to figure out the podcast name, had to come up with cover art and I had to be able to do my intro and had to know who I was going to interview. I had to figure out how to get guests and how to do interviews. You could have given me another six months of trying to figure it out. I still wouldn't have been ready because I found that I only learned by doing.”

“Just start, especially for your audience. I think that's going to be key. To stop debating and start doing because you're going to learn. You're never going to be ready by thinking, planning and strategizing. I understand that it does have a place and that can be important. But there's a point where it becomes counterproductive, so just start and you'll figure it out along the way.”

Guest Bio
Jacob Kelly got his start in sports social media at 19 years old as the Digital Manager for the Ottawa 67’s of the Ontario Hockey League. He built their social marketing strategy and scaled the platforms to great heights, earning and approximate earned media value of $1,480,000 in his time with the team.

In January 2020, Jacob started his own company, JAK Marketing and has since taken it full time. Prior to running this agency, he was the Digital Manager for the Ottawa REDBLACKS, responsible for all social media channels, email and web content.

In addition to the CFL day job, he leveraged his podcasting experience to launch a second show, called REDBLACKS Unfiltered, which launched at the top of the football podcast charts.

In partnership with Trufan, Jacob hosts the hit podcast “My Social Life”. A podcast that he started a few years ago to tell the stories behind the people on social media.

He continues to be a leader in the podcast space and has interviewed many influencers in the online marketing world. He’s interviewed over a hundred people, including YouTuber JustDustin, Karla Gregg, Nik Sharma, Sean Does Magic and more!

FOLLOW JACOB

Instagram - @thejacobkelly

Twitter - @TheJacobKelly

LinkedIn - JacobKelly

FOLLOW TRUFAN

Website - TrufanHOME

Instagram - @Trufan

LinkedIn - TrufanCompany

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David Speed UK On Podcasting & Painting as a Creative Rebel

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (JustTries, DavidSpeedUK) — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 11:50:38 +0000

Everyone can learn to turn their creative passions into a business. In this episode of Just Keep Learning, David Speed of Creative Rebels UK talks about how to build a creative business, especially if school isn’t for you. Other advice includes how to ignore the haters and become successful in pursuing your passions, starting a podcast and much more!

We tackle how to get started with monetization of your creativity. But we also go deep on the way the education system fails so many of us and talk a lot about how to start a podcast.

In this episode, David talks about dark times and how learning to becoming a better painter helped him regain happiness. He shares his experiences with learning, inspiration from his dad about being an entrepreneur, becoming a public speaker and much more.

Episode Notes

We discussed the idea that creative people are often made to feel like outsiders. The right brain, random, creative rebels are people who just want to be free to share their art. But, how do you monetize this? How do you pay the bills and support your family long term with a creative career?

We discuss the concepts of patience, perseverance and knowing your own big dreams when it comes to building the life you want, instead of what other people tell you to do. David has proved to the world that this can be done and one of his greatest passions is sharing how to do this with youth, teachers, parents and companies to help them do it for themselves.

David talks about how mainstream education was built as a system to fuel factories with workers a hundred years ago. We talk about how important learning is and what the difference is compared to education. Learning is everything.

David also has a pretty wise belief that learning leads to mental health. It seems roundabout, but it’s not. If you’re engaged with lifelong learning, then you will progress in your passions and as you make progress you will feel happiness more often. One of the main things that ran throughout this episode was the concept of how to start a podcast yourself.

Keys To Starting A Podcast

Our rule was that we only do in person podcasts. But we realized it’s better to be flexible, and use things like Zoom calls to overcome barriers to working with guests. And when you think about it, some of the biggest one’s like Tim Ferris have always been remote.
Pick a name and go with it, use the best equipment that you currently have and get started, that’s the best way to learn and build at the beginning.
Don’t listen to the haters, or those that don’t care about the show. They don’t matter. People will judge you for starting a podcast but you don’t want them in your audience anyways.
When it comes to the information you discuss and share be sure to keep the end user in mind. What do your listeners like to hear and in what format? As you grow to understand your audience your show will evolve and adjust. It’s ok to get creative, but be on topic and on point for them more often than you are not.
One thing about the type of content you make for your show, and it’s amazing is that podcasts are evergreen. So, that means that as a show grows and more people are exposed to it, they can always go back and find earlier episodes. The key is to build content that you know once you develop a following and subscriber base that you are leaving things they will still love to go listen to.
When it comes to getting people on your show, potential guests are busy, so I understand them being protective of their time. At the same time, you know, I think it's totally worth the effort to just try, because if you ask a hundred people, one of them will say yes. It becomes a numbers game.
To grow your show, don’t go chasing followers. This way you will build an engaged audience that truly cares what you are building. What you should do is plant as many flags as possible. A flag is every piece of content, or networking interaction you have. Touch points with potential supporters and collaborators. Doing this more and more ensures that opportunities and support for your work will flow to you. It's always worth planting the flag because you never know who will see it.

School Talk
School was not the right fit for David. He made it through, but for a world class artist, he only ever got C’s in his favorite subject of art. In main school he felt like an outsider who didn’t belong. Even in art he was never considered good. In fact, one teacher told him that he needed to find a “realistic” job because painting wasn’t an actual career.

We got to talking about how the ones who are supposed to be lifting us up are also the ones with direct access to tear us down. It’s the people like David, who find something deep inside to keep pursuing their passion. They continue to follow their dream in the face of hater and push on.

We talked about why this might be. Perhaps it was the influence of his father who followed and monetized his trade as a career as well. Or simply the fact that he knew painting would bring him mental health at a minimum.

We also discussed Andria Zafirakou, an art educator who won teacher of the year in 2018 and often buys supplies with her own money so her students can access creative passions like painting and drawing. It’s teachers like this who bring the things that really light a student's soul on fire into the classroom that make a real difference.

How To Start A Podcast
David reminds us that success in any creative field is dependent on the amount of work and focus we put into it. The only way to get better at podcasting is to create a podcast. Just get started. Don’t slow down to think too long about a name, equipment, or who your guest will be.

When it comes to building a following realize that this will take a three year plan in many cases. If you work hard for three years, put in the consistent effort you simply will be successful.

But one of the most important things to keep in mind is the feelings of the end user. Get feedback on what people like, don’t like and learn how to improve, pivot and get more feedback. The best approach we can make is to implement the design approach to our business and podcast life.

Memorable Quotes
“My advice to people choosing a podcast name would be pick something and go with it, because too many people spend six months wondering what it's going to be called, when they could just be recording. At the end of the day, the name is not important.”

“Learning is everything, I think that so much of happiness is built up in progression, and I think the more that you progress, the happier you can become. And I think that comes from learning.”

“Whatever your dream is, there's a person on the planet who will make that happen for you. You just don't have access to that person yet.”

Guest Bio
In 2010 he started his first business, Graffiti Life. They started as two street artists taking their talents to paint residential bedrooms, but quickly realized that a move to more corporate settings would make the business more scalable and feed more artists.

At this time they pivoted to networking with larger businesses and it worked. In the years that followed we have generated a massively successful business. Our team has grown from three to fifteen and we regularly make art for global brands like Nike, L’Oreal and Disney.

David started the podcast as a way to share their business with potential customers. But, the main reason was to help people learn to start their own creative businesses.
Alongside his business partner and fellow creative rebel Adam, he started the Creative Rebels Podcast.

Creative Rebels launched to number 1 in the business charts. It has also been featured on Apple’s ‘New and Noteworthy’, ‘Be your own boss’ and as one of iTunes recommended business podcasts. The show has also been featured by Spotify as the top podcast for ‘Fuel Your Creativity’.

FOLLOW DAVID
Instagram - @davidspeeduk
Twitter - @davidspeeduk
LinkedIn - DavidSpeeduk

FOLLOW REBELS CREATE
Instagram- @RebelsCreate

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Buster Scher On Business Success The Right Way At Hoopsnation

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan) — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 05:13:50 +0000

Buster talks about the rise as a broadcaster, blogger, and business owner all before the age of 16. He’s built a social media giant in Hoopsnation and works with the NBA, record labels, athletes, and artists to increase their digital impact. We got to talking about school, dealing with the haters, how to start as a rapper and building businesses from a young age. But most importantly, how to follow your dreams while being a good person along the way.

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So, who better to kick The LEARNED Podcast off than someone who started building a pretty badass basketball media company from the age of 14?

I believe strongly that there is no such thing as a self-made person. In this episode, Buster Scher talks about this when it comes to how important collaboration is.. We discussed the idea that the music we loved growing up always brings us back.

We didn’t spend too much time discussing Buster’s come up, because it’s been so well documented in previous podcasts. You can check out a great episode from Jacob Kelly’s, “My Social Life Podcast” for example where they go over some of these great beginnings.

It was really powerful to hear Buster tell us how Seth Godin. Yes, THE Seth Godin, was the person who predicted Buster would start his career without going to college. Not only did it become the reality, but he’s also done quite well without it.

We talk about this notion for a little while about whether or not college is valuable. In my opinion, if you know a program that requires specific training, then it is a must.

Buster talks about how over-priced formal education is when it comes to the amount of time wasted and the price versus what you learn. He has some great ideas about what we should teach, such as networking in third grade. He also brings up the fact that curation may be the key to helping people learn in a digital world.

Maybe we won’t learn a lot of academic things on social media, but we don’t have to learn them from a college. So, where could we learn them from? Perhaps the key is people curating great learning so that people know where they can go to learn, from the best, for free, or close to it.

Right now, the only thing everyone has to do, aside from food is learning, and so we discuss how eventually major brands and corporations will take over education. It seems inevitable.

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Buster brings us into his mindset when he goes on to talk about how important it is to find your passions, discover what you love and really pursue it full speed. He says this was one of the main reasons why “bullying” didn’t impact him as much as it could have, because he was always so grateful with being able to try to do what he loves and tune the rest out.

When discussing the potential struggles with drugs and alcohol that youth face, Buster brought up a very important point. That we need to put people into more positions where their goal is so important to them that they will decide more and more often to choose to take the more efficient route. To do things that will help them achieve that goal.

A powerful moment was when Buster talked about enjoying what you do so much that the process is the fun part, not the end result. This is coming from someone who has millions of followers across multiple social media platforms, yet still practices what he preaches.

Buster is a big believer that the majority of things we do when we find our true passions are enjoyable. There will always be additives that aren’t as exciting, but if we audit life we definitely should enjoy seventy-five percent of it.

The humble nature that Buster brings to collaboration is truly incredible. Leveraging that level of being a great teammate makes it pretty obvious as to why he is rising to the top of the online business game.

Here are some things that came up in the episode that would help anyone looking to start their own online business.

Keys To Building A Business

Collaboration is so important from a growth standpoint because it allows you to reach other audiences you may not have otherwise and teamwork makes things way more fun.
Paying attention to the market is one of the first most important things you should do when starting in online business. Pay attention to those who are successful doing something similar to what you want to do. Study what they do and why they’re successful
Networking is one of the most important skills that we don’t explicitly teach young people enough. It is such a super skill that seems very underrated.
Create as soon as possible. Don’t spend too much time consuming the work of others, because the more you start building your work, the more you will be able to succeed with your own work and appeal to more and more people.
Scaling up is all about putting work out there and sharing it with people at your level. Putting more work out there, hitting people a bit higher and ratcheting it up and then it’s over.
Automate, and make things more efficient, so that you can spend time doing more things that you love doing and that is unique to your skillset, and less of what someone else can do.
Live content is the best content because it is raw and there's a different connection. The action is exactly what you see and people connect to it. It’s also efficient because you don’t have to edit as much.

Sports Talk

We had a funny moment when I asked Buster, “why hockey is better than basketball” which actually turned into a funny story about his experience with hockey.

Buster talked about the business side of sports and how it is a really good example of teaching people to start their own business. And that things like time management, effort, and perseverance we see in sport are reflective of what we see in business.

When it comes to athletes or people in business, it is so important to put people in positions where they can build confidence and succeed.

In sports, Buster talks about the fact that sports card ownership makes him a fan of players that he, in many ways, has stock in. He also discusses how beyond that, it’s all about appreciating greatness. Looking up to the athletes that stay on top of their game the longest because it’s so hard to do.

Towards the end of the episode, Buster gets into talking about sports cards and his subsidiary under Hoopsnation, called Cardsnation. The sports card market is taking off and Buster is ahead of the curve by investing, trading, studying, and selling. But above all, he’s already building a brand in the sports cards industry. If all other projects are any indication, Cardsnation will be pretty big, pretty quickly too.

Social Media Use

We threw around the idea of making learning more mainstream. Discussing things like social media by going a little rapid-fire. Buster talked about Facebook and how it has its ups and downs but is still a valuable platform.

How it can be valuable to go where the attention is and figure out how to grow the brand across platforms that are working at the time. We brought up the idea of using Youtube and Twitch for more than entertainment, but for education as well. There are definitely pros and cons, but it’s a cool idea to have learned on a cool platform.

Buster discusses his current ambition to have a positive impact on the world through more than just sports influencing. He speaks highly of Joe Rogan and the skillset of building a network of great people. Ultimately, that’s what learning is, being able to tap into great minds when you need them, and Buster is also well on his way to building such a massive team in life.

Memorable Quotes

“When it comes to collaboration, I don’t really put much thought into it, because of how much I believe that it is a necessity. It’s one, or it’s both. Either you work alone, or you work alone and with other people. It’s a no brainer in my opinion.”

“It’s worth holding out, by doing something organic, instead of trying to make a quick buck and then selling out your merch. It’s just worth it.”

“Everything you want to do takes ten times longer than you think it will and you gotta just stick it out if you love it.”

“Something scary that happens on social media is when someone blows up. I think that is the worst thing that can happen because it creates an unsustainable level of success from the beginning. You get everything too quick and therefore you lose it quick too.”

Guest Bio

At Just Keep Learning we are all about being able to focus on following your dreams. Not just dreaming, but feeling safe and supported to do it! We want kids pursuing passions with an insane drive where they know they can’t possibly lose. Buster is the perfect role model for this mindset.

Buster has built a brand with his companies and on a personal level that is all about his passions first. He is a tremendous role model for growth mindset, goal setting, and vulnerability.

He is what the internet might consider and influencer, or sports personality, known best for founding the basketball brand Hoopsnation. His accounts earn millions of views, visits, and followers.

But beyond social media, he is an all-around first-class entrepreneur. He is able to leverage his ability to network, create content, and his love for all things business of sport to create a career that he loves and owns. To see where someone who started his business in high school is able to grow in the years to come will be incredible.

😉 CONNECT WITH BUSTER

Instagram - @Buster

YouTube - Buster Scher

Twitter - @BusterScher

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😉 FOLLOW HOOPS NATION

Instagram - @HoopsNation

Facebook - Hoops Nation

😉 CONNECT WITH JUSTIN (JustTries)

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😉 CONNECT WITH JUST KEEP LEARNING

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Just Keep Learning Podcast Episode 0 JustTries

justin@justkeeplearning.ca (Justin Nolan) — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:57:34 +0000

Everyone has the ability to chase their dreams. Yet, we let so many things get in the way.
Everyone has the ability to be a great teacher. Yet, we overcomplicate.

If you are listening to this right now, thank you.

Contrary to popular belief, the most difficult thing in starting a show is not getting started. It’s getting people to know about it. If you like learning, growth mindset and vulnerability, then this podcast is for you!

Welcome to the trailer for The Just Keep Learning Podcast, I’m your host, Justin aka (@JustTries).

All of our guests are great role models in their field.

We interview many of the greats when it comes to podcasting, community management, social media, digital products, online marketing, memberships, blogging and more...

By listening wherever you are, at whatever speed you’d like you can learn how to pursue online business for yourself.

Check out some of these gems from upcoming episodes:

Amy Blaschka - “Everyone is a leader. Everyone can be a leader. It’s really about how you move through life.”
Jacob Kelly - “Everyone tends to be their most P-R’d version of themselves on social media. We curate what we decide to share. Although we are starting to see a shift.”
Irina Buse - “Yea I did my job, but I was never the best. I did what I had to do. But the system is very good at telling you that if you’re not good at everything then you are no good.”
Jordan Paris - “The goal should always be to find evidence that disconfirms your most cherished beliefs and those of others, that is true science. Confirmation bias, that’s what we’re fighting here.”
Karla Gregg - “If you put different skills, something you’re good at and something someone else is good at, it’s going to be a power team So yeah, I definitely believe in collaboration.
Buster Scher - “I think everybody, at a very young age, knows what they love. Now, most people don’t think they know what they love. But whatever you spend the most time doing, that’s what you love!”

Our biggest challenge is to make sure that this show gets to the people who need it most. If you know anyone with an interest in learning, or starting their own online business, please pass it along, subscribe, and leave a review.

We don’t have any outside sponsors yet. So, if you would like to support the show follow @JustTries, or go to justkeeplearning.ca and check out our content and coaching to help you crush your own goals!

FOLLOW JUSTIN (@JustTries)

Website - JustTriesHOME
Instagram - @JustTries
YouTube - Just Tries
Twitter - @JustTries_
Tiktok - @justtries
Facebook - Just Tries

CONNECT WITH JUST KEEP LEARNING
Website - JKLHOME
Instagram - @JustKeepLearning.Ca
Tiktok - @justkeeplearning.ca
Pinterest - JKL Pinterest
Facebook - Just Keep Learning
Free Group - JKL Goal Setting Community